


Echoes

by Schattenriss



Series: The Contours of Shadows [11]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Humor, Awkward Conversations, Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Just a Casual Dinner Party, M/M, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-24 06:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10735731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenriss/pseuds/Schattenriss
Summary: Kai Trevelyan, former Inquisitor, vanquisher of demigods, consort to a Tevinter Magister and powerful mage in his own right, faces his most terrifying challenge yet: an extended family visit.





	1. Day 1 - Arrivals Are Always Awkward; Fennecs and Fireworks

**Author's Note:**

> While this can be read without knowledge of the other works, chronologically it takes place at the end of _TRAITOR_.
> 
> When Kai Trevelyan was forcibly taken from his home to the Ostwick Circle years ago, it wasn't just traumatic for him - his family was affected as well, and some of the damage done didn't automatically fix itself just because time passed. Repairing it has been a slow process, but at Dorian's urging, Kai has finally consented to go to his parents' place for a proper visit...
> 
> (Some spoilers for _[Departures](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7904269)_ and _[TRAITOR](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7166318)_ ahead.)

I stepped out of the coach before the gates to my parents’ estate and felt like time was layering on itself, past intersecting present with each step I took. The gates were ornate ironwork, more for show than an earnest attempt to keep anyone out. I pushed them open and walked through, taking the extra moment to close them after me as the coach clattered away. _At least I won’t have to deal with tending to a bloody horse_ , I thought as I started walking. The grounds before me looked park-like, lush and well-tended, with copses of pink and purple wisteria trees and cunningly placed islands of crystal grace. The gravel path was firm and even and late afternoon sunlight imparted a warm, fairy-tale glow to the scene. As always on my rare visits, I found it difficult to believe I'd actually lived there.

It took five minutes to reach the house, which consisted of a large central building constructed of gray-white river stone flanked on either side by two short wings set at right angles to the main house, giving the whole complex a truncated U shape and the back of the place a large courtyard with one open end. The roof was of red clay tile. Elsewhere on the grounds were stables, a guesthouse and a few outbuildings. It hadn’t changed much over the years. I approached the big front doors and knocked, almost hoping no one would answer.

Of course, someone did: a dark-haired elven woman of indeterminate age in a servant's outfit. I didn't recognize her, but she'd obviously been briefed to expect me, saying, "Messere Kai? You can leave your things here; someone will take them to your room. If you would follow me?"

I put my things down, wondering if it had been a good idea to agree to stay there for a few days. "Thank you- what is your name?" I asked.

"Briala, messere."

I almost said I knew another Briala, but stopped myself. I didn't think this Briala would take casual comments about knowing the Empress Celine's former lover and spymaster in the harmless light I'd mean them to be.

She led me through the big foyer with its curving staircase into the back of the main house, which was dominated by a vast, airy living room. That had changed a great deal since my childhood. The floors were all rich, polished wood with a warm, reddish tint. A sleek bar had replaced its more rustic predecessor at one end of the room. There were four stools upholstered with padded, deep brown leather lined up along it. Arranged nearby were matching chairs arranged around a couple of low, round tables. The big window that used to look out on the courtyard had been turned into a wall of windows. Near the fireplace at the end opposite the bar was a large, plush rug of what I think was Nevarran design, and arranged on that was a white couch fronted by a long, low ebony coffee table. Across from that, my parents were sitting in matching armchairs, an antique end table of black ironwood between them.

"Messere Kai," Briala announced as my mother rose from her chair. Her duty done, she gave a brief bow and disappeared into the depths of the house.

"Hello, Kai," my mother said as she embraced me. I always felt vaguely surprised by the fact that I'm quite a bit taller than she; in all my memories of being there she'd still been the taller one. Trying not to stiffen against the hug, I said, "Hello, Mother."

She broke the embrace and moved back an arm's length to study me. "You look well. How was your trip? Take off your coat and sit, for goodness sake."

As I followed her instructions, my father nodded to me saying, "Kai. Welcome." He never was a demonstrative man, so his apparent lack of enthusiasm came as no surprise. 

I echoed his nod. "Father. Good to see you." His hair had finally started to succumb to age, showing a sprinkling of grey that hadn't been there the last time I'd seen him. A year and a half ago it had been as black as mine. It had also begun to recede a bit at the temples, but all that did was make him look a little more distinguished.

I sat and we all looked at each other.

Mother repeated, "Did your trip go well?" I said it did, made a few obligatory remarks about the weather. Father said some disparaging things about the state of the roads these days in days in the Ostwick countryside, Mother said they aren't _that_ bad, I said I'd certainly seen worse and we hit another awkward moment of silence.

 _Maker, we haven't made it five minutes and I agreed to at least two days of this?_ There had to be something safe to talk about.

I looked around the room. "This is all new, isn't it? I love what you've done with it; very airy."

My mother took the offered subject happily, describing what they'd had done and then taking me on an extended tour of the house. I was as pleased as she was even though Father chose to bow out of the tour and wait for us in the living room. It was interesting to see what had and hadn't changed and more importantly, it gave us something to do other than sit there feeling uncomfortable. 

Of course, it didn’t take uncomfortable long to return as we reached the room that had been mine so long ago. 

“I didn’t know if you’d want to stay in here,” Mother said as she opened the door. It had barely changed in all the years I’d been gone, but it wasn’t in that honoured-shrine-to-a-treasured-child way you often hear about. It was more the result of people in a house with far more rooms than they ever needed not getting round to doing anything with rooms they never used. That it wasn’t covered in a layer of narratively significant dust was no doubt due to the cleaning staff. I remembered the furnishings — the bed had seemed larger back then — and the bookshelf that still held books and a few other items, but I no longer associated any particular emotion with them. 

“I remember this room as being much larger,” I said as I studied it.

“All your things are still here,” she said. “We could have put them in storage, but they seemed fine where they were.”

“I never knew that.”

“Well,” she flashed me a small smile, “this _is_ the first time you’ve spent the night. There was never time the other times you visited and you never asked about your things.”

“I don’t suppose I thought you’d kept them.” I saw one item that made me smile and enter the room. “A mini-crossbow? Why don’t I remember this?” I picked it up and studied it. “It’s a real hunting bow, not a toy. _Very_ well-made. This thing is fabulous.”

Mother joined me. “Your uncle Oswin gave that to you for your thirteenth birthday. He said you were man enough that you should learn how to use one.”

I frowned, feeling puzzled. “Why don’t I remember it? Did I not like it?”

“You thought it was the best gift you’d ever been given. You were getting very good with it as I recall. Then- then the Templars came…” she trailed off. 

“Ah. Of course,” I said flatly. I remembered trying very hard to forget everything I’d cared about at home when it had sunk in that they would never let me return; it appeared I’d been more successful than I thought. I forced my tone to be more cheerful, “Well, if you don’t mind, I’m taking this with me. It’s a beautiful little crossbow.”

I could almost feel the relief coming off her as she smiled. “Mind? It’s yours, Kai. It was just waiting here for you.”

“I have a friend who collects these. She got me back into shooting them. I look forward to showing it to her.” I poked about the rest of the room, but didn’t see anything else that caught my fancy. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not stay in here, though,” I said, “I’ve grown quite a bit since that bed was comfortable.”

She chuckled. “I expected as much. I had Briala prepare the guest bedroom in the south corner for you. It’s quiet there.”

“Mother, I’ve been living in cities for years. _Everything_ here seems quiet.” We left the bedroom, closing the door on that empty remnant of my childhood.

We kept the conversation light for the rest of the house tour. In many ways we were virtual strangers trying to feel our way to a place where a friendship could develop, but unlike true strangers, our path was riddled with pitfalls and old hurts that could appear out of nowhere. 

Back when the Templars arrived to take me away, my father had been… I suppose deeply disappointed would best describe it, but Mother had been utterly horrified that a child of hers had turned out to be a mage, and a powerful one at that. She’d refused to acknowledge me for what seemed like a very long time, though I admit my memory could be coloured by the anger and hurt I felt back then. Even after she got over what I assume was her initial horror, for years she spoke of my being a mage the way people talk of having an embarrassing social disease.

She did eventually at least modify her attitude and since I got away from the Circle she’s tried hard to make up for how she behaved and build a relationship. I’d been considerably less diligent over the years, but this visit was partly to put in some effort of my own before my parents got too old. Partly. I had a bad feeling they weren’t going to like the other part.

We returned to the living room. My father offered up the idea of having a drink before dinner to everyone’s approval, though he shook his head despairingly when I opted for beer. “I have an exquisite Pinot noir from ’37 Dragon,” he suggested.

“I’m sorry, Father, it would be wasted on me. I still don’t care for wine,” I replied.

“I’m not surprised, considering the swill that passes for wine in Hasmal,” he grumped as he poured himself a glass.

I smiled. “I turned them down in Halamshiral as well. I’m told it caused a minor scandal, as the Empress Celine had offered that particular bottle from her private collection.” 

He frowned at me. “You insulted Orlais’ empress?”

“She wasn’t insulted. Once she realized I was serious, she found it rather amusing. Our diplomatic head was appalled at me; to her mind it made me look like an uncultured bumpkin.”

“To the Orlesians too, I imagine,” Father said.

“Well, yes. There were some jokes made at my expense. Of course, there were others who went into a quiet panic trying to figure out what new tactic in their Grand Game I was executing. They couldn’t imagine that I just honestly don’t like wine.”

“Face it, Em,” Mother said, “he inherited my family’s palate. Oswin’s the same way, insists that all wine tastes like grape juice that’s gone off.”

He shook his head disbelievingly but subsided and handed me a beer out of the icebox. “So what are you up to these days?” he asked.

I sighed. “It’s-

“Complicated?” he finished for me, but he was smiling, which surprised me no end.

“Yes. I’m sorry, I know it sounds like a cheap dodge to avoid telling you anything, but honestly, it’s true. I can tell you a few things, but let’s wait until after dinner, shall we?”

He handed my mother a drink and sat back down in his armchair. “As you like. Is there anything you _can_ talk about? Your mother and I haven’t heard much from you this past year.”

“I’d rather hear about what you’ve been doing first,” I said.

He sipped his drink, eyes a lighter, bluer shade of grey than mine looking at me flatly. “I’d like to, son, but it’s complicated.”

“Emil!” Mother laughed. “Don’t listen to him, Kai. He’s just teasing you.” 

Father smiled lazily.

“Quite all right; I deserved that,” I said. I cudgeled my mind for something safe to talk about. “Did I ever tell you I have a pet nug?”

“A nug? I think I would have remembered that,” Mother said.

“A friend of mine breeds them; she gave me one just over a year ago. His name’s Swivet.”

“That’s sweet,” she said with a smile.

“Do they make good pets?” Father asked.

“Surprisingly, yes. He-” _helped save my life once._ No, that was one of those complicated things I would probably never tell them, “he’s very clever,” I finished.

“I always wanted a fennec,” Mother said wistfully, “Father refused; said they’re too wild to make good pets. I always wondered if he was telling the truth.”

“Whenever we ran across them in the wild they always seemed to think it was the most wonderful thing ever to run alongside us,” I told them. “It was like having a cute, yippy honor guard.” I left out the part about how they also ended up getting themselves killed frequently because they didn’t have the sense to get out of the way when things started attacking us. “I think your father was right, though. They seemed like they’d be a handful if you tried to keep one. Very energetic animals.”

“I prefer cats,” Father opined. “They know how to take care of themselves and they’re not suck-ups like dogs.” That should tell you a great deal about my father in a nutshell.

“So how’s Danae doing?” I asked. Danae’s my sister. I’d met her twice in the last twenty-five years. She’s twelve years younger than me and was still a baby when the Templars locked me away in the Circle.

“She’s doing well,” Mother said.

“She’s been up in Antiva the past few years, apprenticing under a master silversmith of all things,” my father said like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“I thought she wanted to become an historian.”

“That was before she discovered silversmithing. Your mother didn’t tell you because we both thought it was a phase,” he said a bit glumly.

“Master silversmiths certainly make a lot more money than historians,” I said.

“She didn’t need to find an occupation that would help fill the family coffers,” Mother said. She sounded cross about it, so I didn’t say what I was thinking, which was along the lines of _more power to her_.

“Well, I’m sure it’ll work out,” I said vaguely. “Um. Does anyone need a refresher?” They both indicated they did, so I escaped to the bar and busied myself pouring drinks. There being no more beer in the icebox, I took a warm one from the stocked cabinet next to it and chilled it with a discreet ice spell. 

Mother had launched into a long and complicated story about some friends of theirs I didn’t know, so I gave them their drinks, sat back down and pretended to listen. I wondered how Dorian and Swivet were getting on together, which naturally led me to wonder what Dorian was doing at that moment. I got absorbed enough in the thought, I nearly missed that Mother had finally thought to ask whether I remembered the people she was talking about.

“He never met them, Jass,” Father said before I could do more than blink stupidly at her (my mother’s name is Jasia; he always calls her Jass).

I shrugged. “I’m sorry, but Father’s right. I don’t have the slightest idea who you’re talking about.”

She _tsk_ ed. “You shouldn’t have let me carry on like that, then. Honestly, you two.”

“It’s all right,” I assured her. Another awkward silence ensued and everyone pretended to be interested in sipping their drinks. 

Father asked if I’d seen one of the nobles he knew from Hasmal lately. I said no, without adding that I never hung around the highborn families in Hasmal, and the fellow he was asking after was a pretentious tit. 

I asked them if they had any plans to travel over the upcoming summer months. They said they hadn’t decided yet. Everyone was trying so hard to keep things safe that we were all afraid to say much of anything. I didn’t see how we were all going to be able to tolerate two more days of it.

Fortunately we were saved by one of the servants coming in to announce that dinner would be served shortly. "I thought we'd eat in the small dining room," Mother said, "It's more intimate."

I let her know I agreed wholeheartedly as I followed them there. The idea of just the three of us trying to eat in the cavernous formal dining room was vaguely horrifying. The small dining room was cheerfully decorated and looked out over the back courtyard with its planters full of colorful flowers; it had always been a comfortable room.

Once the meal was served we were able to concentrate on the food, which made things easier. I told them a few humorous stories about encountering other cultures' unusual dining habits while I was with the Inquisition that went over well, and they told some culinary disaster stories of their own. We all had experienced excruciating state dinners, so that afforded us several more minutes of spirited conversation.

The food — venison steaks with vegetables — was excellent (I reminded myself to find and compliment the cook later) and I felt myself starting to relax a bit.

Then Father said, "Speaking of the Inquisition, Kai…"

"Yes?" I said cautiously, mentally repeating a litany of _don't start don't start don't start._

"Please don't get offended." _Here it comes_. "Just help me to understand. You were the _head_ of an organization that was well on its way to becoming a world power. You were _respected_. How could you just shut that all down and walk away from it?"

"I had my reasons," I said shortly.

"Care to elaborate a bit?"

 _Venhedis, he just wasn't going to leave well enough alone._ I sighed. "I could shut it down because it needed to be. The reason the Inquisition was formed was to defeat Corypheus. We did that. We had no further mandate."

"It never occurred to you to get a new one?" he said drily.

"No. There were things going on you never heard about. It was a large organization, Father, and it was becoming corrupt. Too many people and too little direction." _Andraste's tits, please just drop it._

"Well, that's when you step in and give it the direction it needs," he said, warming to his subject. "You were a statesman; you should know that."

I looked him calmly in the eyes. "I was a damn good statesman, but that's not germane to what you're asking. Even if they'd decided to keep the Inquisition going — which would have been a mistake in my opinion — it would have been without me."

He frowned. "Don't tell me it was because of that Vint-"

"Em," my mother said warningly.

"It's all right, Mother," I said, still keeping my eyes on his, "No. It was not because of Dorian. If anything he kept me going longer than I would have otherwise. I left because I was miserable and it was slowly killing me. I was very good at what I was doing, but I did not want to do it anymore. Can you understand that?" 

He shook his head. "It sounds like abandoning your responsibilities to me."

"It wasn't. It was choosing my personal well-being over that of an organization. I don't need or desire power and status that badly. It's not all it's cracked up to be." 

"So because you were unhappy you sunk the Inquisition along with it? How is that responsible?" he demanded.

"I told you, there were things going on that made it the only logical decision. If they'd wanted to keep the bloody thing going they could easily have chosen someone else to take over, so I wasn't abandoning anything. If I'd stayed on I would have been increasingly ineffective and _that_ would have been irresponsible of me. Now could we just drop it? I have nothing more I care to say on the subject."

"I-," he stopped himself, "All right. Consider it dropped. Thank you for at least attempting to explain."

I nodded.

"Isn't this where one of us should say 'anyone for dessert?'," Mother said.

We all chuckled a little more enthusiastically than the question merited, and Father made the same silly comment he'd been making for years about preferring some sort of pastry to having any one of us for dessert and the situation was thankfully defused, at least for the time being.

"By the way," I said, "I can't believe neither one of you noticed."

They both looked at me expectantly. I pushed up my shirt sleeve, baring my left forearm, and flexed my fingers. Both of them had identical expressions of surprise that I found rather gratifying. 

Mother said, "How- did they grow it back for you somehow?"

I smiled. "No, unfortunately. It's a prosthesis, but on a whole new level of sophistication. It's a combination of artificing, magic and runecraft. I can do everything with it I could with my real hand. Well, except feel anything; they haven't quite figured that out yet."

"Can I touch it?" my mother's eyes were bright with curiosity. I offered up my arm for inspection. "It's warm!" she said wonderingly, "You can feel there's something a smidge off about it, but even up close it looks exactly like your arm."

"That's part of what the runes do," I explained. "They also make it possible for me to think something and have the hand do what it's supposed to do."

"How do they manage that?" Father wanted to know.

"I have no idea," I confessed. "A friend of mine who's a genius at runecraft did it, and an artificer friend built the arm. I just did what they told me to do."

"You have very interesting friends, Kai," my mother said. I agreed.

Of course, then Father had to inspect it. “Incredible work. I’ve never seen anything this sophisticated. Did they construct that for you purely out of friendship?” he asked shrewdly.

“No, it cost me. The sort of materials and craftsmanship involved don’t come cheap, but it was worth every copper. I made enough during the Inquisition that price wasn’t a big concern.”

“Was it a one-off just for you or is it reproducible?” he asked.

“Em, really,” Mother scolded, “Are you pumping him for investment information?”

“It’s all right. It is reproducible, and before you ask, the recipient doesn’t have to be a mage for it to work. If you like, I could let my friends know you’re interested. They’ve been toying with the idea of making prostheses for other people.”

“I’d like. Considering all the wars and random conflicts that have gone on over the past number of years, they’d not have any shortage of customers,” he said. 

One of the servants came in to find out if anyone wanted dessert. No one did, so we returned to the living room for after dinner drinks. I was tempted to suggest we play some sort of game just to keep everyone happy and distracted, but I did have something to tell them, and if it was going to get me thrown out of the house I felt I'd rather get it over with. Well, once the food had settled a bit more and a drink or two had mellowed everyone (yes, I was delaying).

I sipped my beer and listened to the two of them talk for a while as I examined the unexpected surge of nostalgia I was experiencing, sitting there letting the sound of their voices wash over me. I didn't have a specific memory tied to it; it was more like a collective memory of sitting in the living room countless times, reading or studying or playing with some toy while my parents talked. It made me feel simultaneously comfortable and oddly melancholy for something that was lost forever.

"Copper for your thoughts, Kai," Father said.

"Hm?" I blinked and smiled slightly. "Sorry. Just…remembering things. It's very strange, being here."

"You were here - what - just over a year ago? A year and a half, maybe."

"Yes, but I stayed in town that time and I was…distracted. My life was," I gave him a half-smile, "very complicated at that point."

"I think this is the first time you've ever stayed overnight, let alone a few days," Mother said.

"I thought it might be time," I said.

"Nice to hear," Father said, "We never wanted you to stay away, you know."

"I _didn't_ know for a very long time," I confessed. "I suppose I just assumed you'd rather I not come around." _Venhedis. Might as well just get it over with._ "You may decide that's so yet."

My mother gave me a narrow look. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"I have something to tell you and I'm expecting you're not going to be happy about it. Mind if I get another drink?"

"Perhaps you should get us all one," Father suggested. I did that. It gave me a chance to delay another five minutes.

Once everyone was re-fortified, he gave me the same look I've seen on my own face when I was waiting to hear news I wasn't going to like. "Well? Let's have it."

I sat forward in my chair, forearms resting on my thighs. "Well. I just thought you should know that, while I still have my house in Hasmal, I don't live there anymore. I moved a few months ago. Permanently. I can still be reached through that address — a friend is looking after the place — but I'm not there."

I saw my mother mouth _oh no_ to herself as Father said, "Don't tell me you've gone back to Orlais; how you can stomach those masked bastards is beyond me."

 _Here goes nothing…_ "No, Father. I live in Tevinter now."

For a moment his face went perfectly blank. He took a brusque gulp of his drink and set it down with great deliberation. He said, barely audibly, "Tevinter."

My mother shot me an incredulous glance as he stood. I straightened up and slid back in my chair. "Tevinter," he said in that same flat voice. Then:

" ** _Tevinter?_** Andraste's bloody _balls_ , Kai! This had better be some sort of sick joke!"

"It's no joke, Father."

He started pacing (and I thought irrelevantly, _so that's where I get that from_ ). "Are you _daft_? No. Of course not." He wheeled around and glared at me. "It's that bloody _Vint_ , isn't it? That's why you've done this!"

"Partly. Mostly. Yes, it started out being because of him, but it's not the only reason," I replied. "And his _name_ is Dorian, not _that bloody Vint_."

"So did you get your own string of slaves as a reward for adding to their population?" he snapped.

" _Venhedis_ , father, it's not a bloody requirement! We don't own slaves. Dorian never has and I wouldn't allow it if he had."

He snorted. "Even using their language already."

"I'm using that rather than saying worse out of respect," I snapped back.

 _"Respect_ , he says!" He turned to my mother. "Did you hear that? He gives his allegiance to the worst cesspool of vipers in this world and then talks about _respect_."

"Father, I'm just living there, not supporting their bloody policies. And you mixed your metaphors."

"Cesspool was deliberate. A _pit_ of vipers would be a delight compared to Tevinter."

"Have you ever even been there?" I demanded. I stood up as well, no longer able to simply sit still.

"Irrelevant," he spat. "And you most certainly are supporting their policies. I'm well aware you aren't even content throwing your lot in with an average Vint. No, you chose a bleeding _magister_." He downed the rest of his drink and stalked over to the bar for a refill.

"Who is _actively_ trying to change Tevinter's policies from the inside rather than sitting down here _whinging_ about it!" I shouted back.

"So have you started in with the blood magic yet?" he said snottily.

"Oh, for- do NOT fucking go there, Father. You don't know the first thing about magic."

"Kai!" my mother glared at me.

"Sorry," I said absently, "but he doesn't and he has no bloody right to say anything to me about magic."

"I know what they do up there," he said stubbornly.

"Yes, every other Thursday we all get together at the local abattoir where we dance naked in the blood of freshly killed slaves, have ourselves an orgy and top off the night by eating babies," I said. "Maker’s breath, yes, there are bad people up there and some of the worst are blood mages, but there're evil wankers down here too, you know."

"So you betray your country to- to _fuck_ some Vint magister?" he yelled.

That got a surprised bark of laughter out of me. "Was that supposed to shock me? All you managed to do was offend Mother. If you insist on putting it that way then yes, that’s exactly what I’ve done. But you’re also ignoring all the bits you don’t want to hear, which means you’re just being pigheaded. And rude.” 

“And how are you going to support yourself up there? Or is that part of the deal? I’m sure as a Magister he has enough wherewithal to keep you in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed,” he sneered.

“So now you’re accusing me of being a whore? Maker’s fucking _breath,_ Father. That’s not just rude, that’s downright insulting and I would never have thought you’d sink to that level just to be hurtful.” 

I waited for some kind of response, but he just stood there, arms folded across his chest, glaring daggers at me. I gestured at him, _Well?_

He snorted and took a slow, deliberate swallow of his drink, somehow making even that seem snotty.

I paced around the perimeter of furnished area in front of the bar and stopped in front of him, resisting the momentary urge to wipe that supercilious look off his face with a precisely-placed bolt of electricity.

“Well don’t _worry_ , I have more than enough money to support myself indefinitely. It’s not an issue and Dorian doesn’t have to give me so much as a bloody copper. I am there because I _love_ him and I _like_ Tevinter. The sooner you get that through your head, the better.” I drained the rest of my beer and slammed the bottle down on the bar. It made a satisfying _clunk_ and I hoped it left a mark. 

“You didn’t answer me about what you’re doing to your country,” he snapped, ignoring what I’d just said.

“I’m not doing a damned thing to my country. I assure you Ostwick and the Free Marches in general are not feeling betrayed or in the least put out by my departure. And you tell me what my country's ever done for me." I helped myself to another bottle, kind of hoping he’d complain but he was too preoccupied with his sudden patriotic fervor.

"It doesn't _have_ to do anything for you. It's your homeland. Apparently your Vint knows what I mean even if you don't, considering he’s got you living up there."

"For pity's sake, would you stop calling him that? It sounds ridiculous. And my _country_ saw fit to lock me up like some kind of mad dog when I was a _child_ on the off chance that I might do something destructive. His country did not do the same to him."

"No, up there his kind are the ones chaining other people up.”

“Would you give the slavery thing a rest? It’s not got anything to do with this conversation. You just accused me of betraying a country that locked me up for what they intended to be the rest of my _life_ and you wonder why I feel no fealty.”

“You needed training," he said sullenly.

"Yes, but once one's been trained in something they're generally allowed to leave and do something constructive with that training, not remain locked up forever because they make _real_ people nervous," I retorted. 

“Fine, I _get_ that you’re upset about that for Andraste’s sake. That still doesn’t change-"

I cut him off. "Did you know in Tevinter they _respect_ my ability with magic? Did you have any idea that I _deserve_ that respect because I've put a great deal of time and effort into honing my skills? Of course not. Because down here no one gives a rat's arse about it unless they have a momentary use for us, and once they’re done with us they want to lock us back up as quickly as possible."

“Something of a spurious argument, seeing as your ‘mage rebellion’ put an end to that, isn’t it?” He gave me a smug look.

“There are people right now who are trying to remove the reforms and go back to the good old days of the Circles, Father. I’m also sick to death of people acting like I have some sort of dreadful communicable disease when they find out I’m a mage. So excuse me if I’m not overly enamoured with Ostwick or the Free Marches or southern bloody Thedas in general.”

“That isn’t Ostwick’s fault,” he insisted, “If you want to blame anyone, blame the Chantry.”

“Who operated with the government’s full consent and support. I spent eighteen fucking _years_ locked up in a Circle and I was fully trained for fourteen of those. Suppose you tell me how I can get that time back.”

He ignored that and carried right on, "So I'm just supposed to give you my blessing? Endorse your decision to turn traitor and throw everything over for some damned Vint magister because up there they applaud you?"

"I wasn't asking for your blessing," I told him flatly, "I was just informing you of my new address."

"Maker's bloody breath," he swore, "You know, I dealt with you being a mage; I know you have no choice in that. It was a shock, and Andraste only knows where it came from, but sometimes life surprises you. I even accepted that you weren't interested in women. I won't pretend to be happy about it, but your being a mage had already dashed any hopes that you'd be there to carry on the family name so there you have it. But _this…"_

I stared at him. "Wait…the main reason you've been upset with me all this time is because I won't be carrying on the family _name_?” I gave a disbelieving bark of laughter.

“So happy I could amuse you,” he snapped, “I fail to see what you find funny about that.” 

“It’s not funny, it’s incredible,” I said, “All these years I thought my very existence offended you and it was about carrying on the _bloodline_? In case it somehow escaped your notice, there are Trevelyans all _over_ the bloody place. And you have Danae, who from everything I've heard is absolutely normal in both her proclivities and complete lack of magical talent."

He stared back, face crumbling with old sorrow, and said, "Yes, but _you were my son_."

 _Were_. Not _are_. That past tense hit me like a slap in the face. I said quietly, "Yes, I suppose I was. But that was a long time ago, wasn't it. If you'll excuse me," I fetched an extra beer from the cabinet behind the bar and went out the back door to the courtyard. 

I sat down on one of the benches and stared at nothing in particular, waiting for my heart to stop racing. _Carrying on the family name? Maker, I’m going to have to tell Dorian that one. It’s a good thing our fathers never met; they probably would have cooked up something cleverly fiendish together._

It was chilly out, but I didn’t feel like going inside for my coat. Instead I just cast a small heat spell. I heard footsteps behind me as my mother approached and sat down beside me. “So should I bother unpacking?” I asked.

“I’d go ahead if I were you,” she said. “A moment after you walked out he stalked off the other direction. He’s probably up in the study now.”

“…Sulking?” I said with a slight smile.

“You said it, not me,” she replied with an answering smile.

“Funny, I’ve been accused of doing the same thing. Would you believe I’ve even been complimented on my ability to walk away from a confrontation?”

She gave a soft but genuine laugh. “Undoubtedly by people who don’t have to live with you.” 

“I noticed you stayed out of it.”

“The two of you were filling the room with enough tension without me adding to it.” She looked at me seriously. “He didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

“Yes, he did,” I said just as seriously, “It hurts, but I’ll get over it. Even if I hadn’t been a mage, it appears I was destined to disappoint both of you.”

She took a sip of the drink she’d brought with her, looking out across the softly moonlit courtyard. I couldn’t read her expression. “It could be that we became so wrapped up in what you weren’t that we’ve overlooked what you are.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. 

Perhaps emboldened by that, or the calm of the courtyard (or the alcohol), she continued, “We heard such things about you during the Inquisition. I still don’t know what’s true and what isn’t.”

“I was not chosen by Andraste for anything,” I said. “I’ve never met the lady.”

She chuckled. “Of _that_ I was confident. Am I also correct that it infuriated you?”

“To put it mildly.”

"Your father's side of the family was thrilled at the idea, you know."

"Father's side of the family infuriates me too."

She snort-laughed, then looked at me like I was something new and exotic. “But the things they said about you as a leader, and as a man…if even part of it is true, we’ve done ourselves a great disservice not getting to know you.”

I smiled. “They’re all true. Except for any bad bits. Those are just lies manufactured by jealous enemies.”

She smacked the back of my head lightly. “Brat. Tell me about Dorian.”

I blinked at her in surprise. “Dorian?”

“He’s obviously very important to you. Important enough that you just nearly gave your father apoplexy with your little announcement. I was thinking if we’re serious about having a relationship with you, it might be nice to know something about him.”

“Well…he’s from Tevinter,” I stammered. She’d caught me completely off-guard.

“I think we’ve established that,” she said drily. “I wasn’t asking for a biography either. You say that you love him; I’d just like to know what makes him so special. How long have you known him?”

“It must be nearly five years now,” I mused, “We’ve been together for most of that. Strange. It seems like both more and less time than that.”

“I know. Tack another thirty-five years onto that and it still feels the same.”

“I just hope we’re together that long.” I took a drink as I tried to organize my thoughts. “As for what makes him special…how do you quantify that? He’s smart _and_ he’s clever, if you know what I mean. We understand each other; I've never met anyone in my life that I can talk with so effortlessly. We make each other laugh. We also challenge each other; he’s creative, which pushes me to be more creative, and so on, you know?"

"Have I ever mentioned you're wonderful at broad generalities? That sounds like an essay you'd write for a tutor."

"I'm starting with generalities because it's not easy to distill into a few words. Dorian is… _present_ in a way no one else has ever been. He plays at being all witty and superficial, but he feels things very deeply. More deeply than I do quite often, if I'm to be truthful. And once he decided to let me see that side of him, he never tried to backpedal. He brings a passion to everything he does; even if he's wrong, he does it with such feeling - and such style - that you appreciate the effort." I paused to take a drink and again organize what I was trying to say.

"One of the things that meant everything: he always saw _me,_ not the bloody Inquisitor. I can't tell you how many people just saw me as the job title, like I didn't even have a name, but he never did that to me. He wasn't just there when things were going well; he also stuck by me when things were miserable, when I was hurt…even when I was just tired and angry and ready to chuck a fireball in the face of the next person who called me the Herald of Andraste. He’s courageous and inventive and quick-witted. He can make me laugh even when I don't want to, and tell me the truth when I'm doing something stupid or obnoxious and when _he_ needs the same he'll come to me. He trusts me implicitly and…he makes me want to be a better man." 

I took a deep breath and grinned. "Of course, on a purely animal level, I find him terribly attractive, and he seems to feel the same about me. He’s also a very good dancer.”

“Important qualities indeed,” she said gravely. “And does he love you?”

“He says he does. I believe he does. If actions truly speak louder than words, consider this: After a fair bit of drama, he threw over centuries of tradition and let the Magisterium know that we’re a couple. Believe me, that was…unheard of. Perhaps even dangerous. Altus take their bloodlines and the propagation of ever-more-powerful mages _very_ seriously. It’s considered one’s duty, and personal happiness be damned. It caused a somewhat major scandal, even though many magisters already knew before he made it official.”

“Does anything happen to you anymore that _doesn’t_ involve a fair bit of drama?” she asked.

I laughed and took a sip of beer. “Sometimes it seems like the answer is no.”

“Tell me about magic,” she said.

I turned sideways on the bench to face her, gobsmacked. “Are you some alien creature that took over my mother’s body?”

“I know I treated you terribly when we found out you had magical talent. I just couldn’t imagine how you’d inherited such a thing.”

“I can tell you that,” I said. “Remember I told you the Altus take their bloodlines very seriously? Well, Dorian was made to memorize the genealogies of the Pavus line, and it turns out our families are distantly related. There’s a small thread of magic likely running through our line.” I grinned. "Furthermore, it runs mainly through Father's oh-so-pious side of the family." 

Now it was Mother’s turn to look gobsmacked. 

“Dorian’s pet theory – mostly facetious – is all those generations of weak magical talent somehow gathered themselves into me.”

“I had no idea…” she said weakly. “Kai…just how powerful are you?”

“Very,” I said shortly. “Magister level. You needn’t worry, though. I’m also very good at controlling it.”

__

“What about what the Chantry’s always talking about? And what happened in Kirkwall years ago; all those mages becoming possessed? They say it can happen to any of you at any time.”

I snorted. “Theoretically you could be struck by lightning at any moment too. It happens much less frequently than they’ve led you to believe. You certainly have nothing to fear from me; if I was going to be possessed, they’ve had more than ample opportunity. Dorian and I are of the opinion that we’re both far too self-possessed to allow anything else in.”

She squinted at me. “Ample opportunity?”

“Trust me, that falls under the heading _it’s complicated_. You probably don’t want to know. I’ve had some very strange and unpleasant things happen to me over the years. My arm is just one example.”

She looked unconvinced, but let it slide, saying instead, “So show me some magic. Well, unless it involves blowing up half the house. Your father would be very unhappy if you did that.”

I smiled. “Not all magic is big and flashy and destructive. It’s easier if you think of it as a tool that you have to possess a specific talent for before you can use it.”

“You can do all the big, flashy stuff? Like shooting lightning and fire?”

“Yes, I can do all of that and more. But magic doesn’t always have to be destructive. Its possibilities are nearly as limitless as imagination itself. For instance, we don’t have to sit here in the dark.” I made a soft light above us, blue because I knew she liked that colour. “I can make this pretty much any colour or magnitude you like, but I thought this would be nicer.”

“It’s lovely,” she said. I could see that lively curiosity of hers taking over as her fear abated. Over the next several minutes I demonstrated several small spells, sticking to things that were either practical, pretty or both. She seemed fascinated and I admit I started showing off a bit. Most people don’t appreciate subtle, close-up work; it’s always the big, flashy stuff that impresses everyone at the same time that it terrifies them. 

For my final demonstration I picked a single flower and sent it floating to her while multicoloured halos of witchlight formed intricate patterns around it. When it reached her, it hovered before her and bowed in as courtly a manner as I could devise while the witchlights swirled around each other, forming themselves into a butterfly made of light which flew away, decreasing in size until it winked out with a tiny flash. The flower remained expectantly in place until she plucked it from mid-air. 

She sniffed it with a smile, looked at me measuringly and said, “Just how much control does it take to do something like that?”

“A lot,” I confessed, thinking that was remarkably intuitive of her. “It’s much more difficult than lobbing a fireball at someone.”

She nodded slowly and stood up. “Well, your old mother is cold and getting tired. I think it’s time I see about jollying your father out of his study and getting some beauty sleep.” She stroked my left cheek and gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze, “You’ve given me much to think about, my son. Why don’t you come in too? You can unpack and if you’re not tired, the library is still in the same place it always was.” Still holding her flower, she disappeared into the house.

I did as she suggested. It was quite a while before I got tired enough to get to sleep; she’d given me a lot to think about too.


	2. Day 2 - Part 1 - Life with Father

I got up late the next day, feeling congested from drinking too much and unsettled because I wasn’t sure what to expect from my parents. It was also too damn quiet; I’d grown accustomed to hearing _some_ sort of noise outside most hours of the day and night. Once I’d got myself put together (somewhat literally, since I had to put the prosthesis back on) I emerged from the guest room to find the house echoingly empty. That was part of the problem with having a place that bloody big for two people – you got the feeling you could wander for days without ever encountering another person.

After using the facilities and washing up, I made a beeline to the kitchen. No matter where I was, procuring coffee was always my primary goal when I arose. Having accomplished that (and I remembered to compliment the cook for last night’s meal), I took my coffee container and cup and wandered a bit aimlessly, finally returning to the courtyard where I sat at one of the small round tables they’d placed where the views were prettiest. I’d look for my parents once the coffee had a chance to take effect.

I’d just poured my second cup when I heard my father clear his throat behind me. “Mind if I join you?”

I indicated _go ahead_ with a wave of my hand, watching him cautiously.

He settled on the deceptively delicate-looking chair with a slight grunt. “I see you managed to find the coffee.”

“Always my first quest of the day,” I said.

“We remembered you’re fond of it, made sure we stocked up for you.”

“Fond is an understatement. Thank you.”

He looked out over the open end of the courtyard, cleared his throat again. “Nice out today. I thought you might be interested in having a look at the grounds. You still ride, don’t you?”

I didn’t have any particular interest in the grounds, but I know a peace offering when I hear it. “I’ve spent more time on horseback in the last seven years than I care to remember,” I said with a slight smile. “Riding I’m fine with; it’s tending to the horses I could live without.”

“There goes my rousing afternoon of currying and stall-mucking,” he joked.

I chuckled and drank more coffee. “I’d like to see the grounds, sure. Just let me finish this?”

“Take your time,” he said, lapsing into silence. He’s one of those people who can be silent around others and feel perfectly comfortable. I know it’s driven some of his colleagues who feel compelled to fill the air with constant conversation nearly mad at times; they can’t fathom how he can be around other people without speaking.

I finished my coffee and we walked to the stables. Two horses were already saddled, so this was no spur of the moment idea. We mounted and I let him take the lead as we rode along the perimeter of the estate’s grounds. I was waiting to follow his lead with any conversation as well; he’d talk once he felt comfortable.

Everything looked much as I remembered at first. Wooden fencing marked the edge of the vast property, which involved a great deal of open green fields dotted with copses of trees. Some were the decorative groves of wisteria and crystal grace like the ones leading to the house, but others were of a more practical nature. There were stands of oak, ironwood and elm that were regularly harvested and replanted for use around the estate and occasionally sold or donated. It was all part of Father’s policy of not being beholden to anyone.

Going deeper into the grounds, we crossed a small stone bridge that spanned a pretty stream. I knew it eventually emptied into a body of water that was too small to be a lake but too large to be a pond. I remembered the bridge being made of wood; the stone looked better. I also remember spending a great deal of time at that lakelet every summer. It had been one of the best features of my parents’ property to my mind and it was where I’d learned to swim.

We reached a wooded area with a wide path through it. I didn’t remember the place at all, and looked askance at Father. “We put all this in about twenty years ago,” he said. “Your sister thought it was the most wonderful place in the world when she was younger.”

“It’s very nice,” I said, “Relaxing.”

“Makes it feel like the grounds are more…natural than they are,” he observed. “Nothing but empty fields feels rather sterile if you ask me.”

I nearly said _not to mention ostentatious_ but stopped myself; for all I knew he’d construe that as my calling him an arrogant twat. Instead I said, “I agree. This is much more pleasant. Almost as good as the lake.”

We continued in silence a bit longer until we reached a section of path that opened into a clearing. Someone (well, obviously my parents) had installed a russet-stained wooden table and benches, a water pump and a fire pit there. 

My father reined in his horse and dismounted, allowing the animal to graze in the section of clearing on the other side of the path from the picnic area. I followed suit and we walked over to sit at the table. I wondered if I was supposed to say something and hoped not, because I suddenly couldn’t think of a thing.

Fortunately, his plan seemed to take that into account. “You know, it struck me,” he said thoughtfully, “before you got here, when we knew you were coming…we really don’t know each other at all.”

"The Chantry saw to that," I said then wondered if I should have.

He made a noise that might have been agreement. "Regardless of the original fault, we haven't remedied that situation since you were able to leave the Circle."

I nodded and made my own agreeable noise.

"Why do you suppose that is?" He looked like he was simply asking an academic question that interested him.

Fine, I could match that tone. It was better than all the shouting from the previous night. "I can't speak for you, but I honestly haven’t known what to say to you. It seemed like too much time had passed," I said. "For eighteen years, aside from the few times they let you visit, all my memories of you were from when I was thirteen and younger and I've changed considerably since then."

"And all our memories were of you as a child, uncomfortable visits aside," he agreed. "Not much to base an adult relationship on."

"No. And since then…” I trailed off, not sure how to fill in that blank. _Since then things have been too fucking weird and I’ve been an abject coward?_ Instead I made a lateral move, conversationally. “You know, I didn't _want_ to come asking you for money when I left the Circle." I ran a hand across my head; it felt rough with stubble.

He shrugged. "We had the money."

"I know. It just felt…I don't know. Immoral, perhaps? Trading on the fact that you were my parents and therefore _had_ to help even though we had virtually no relationship."

He chuckled. "Kai, that's what every child does regardless of the quality of relationship."

"Being in a Circle gives you a very skewed picture of what normal relationships are supposed to look like." I traced my index finger along the grain of the wood, thinking back as I talked. 

"Your real family no longer exists; they do everything they can to impress that on you. The Circle is your world and it will be for the rest of your life, so you’re not to hope for anything more or different. Relationships — personal, romantic ones — are frowned on. Any you might manage to have tend to be very…secretive and rushed. There's fuck-all privacy and everywhere you go there are Templars watching you, just waiting for you to do something wrong.” I raised my eyes to meet his. “I always imagined it's quite a bit like being an animal in a zoo; that's what it felt like."

He looked away uncomfortably. "I…didn't know that."

I shrugged. "Why would you? No one ever went out of their way to report on living conditions in the Circles, and I doubt the average citizen would give a damn anyway."

"I’m sorry to say you’re likely right about that."

I blew out a huff of air. “I know. They made sure we knew the common people out there would cheerfully kill us. Of course, they also made it clear that in the event we did get it into our heads to leave, the Templars would hunt us down and do the same.”

"The inherent charm of a Chantry-run operation.” He snorted. “Goes a long way toward explaining why you seemed so angry."

“It wasn’t just a seeming. Anger was my default setting for a lot of years. I’m only just starting to get over that now.”

He nodded. “Another facet of ‘it’s complicated’?”

"Yes, well…As complicated as my life got, things have improved since I came banging you up for money." I gave him a wry smile. "Though last night was not a stellar example of progress."

He gave a humourless bark of a laugh. "No, that was…not a viable template to build a relationship upon.” 

I returned to tracing the grain of the tabletop, finally looked back up at him. “I hope you know how much I appreciate the help you gave me when I left the Circle.”

“All part of the job,” he said, smiling faintly.

I shook my head. “It was more than that. You made it possible for me to get my entire life going. I don’t know that I ever told you how much that meant. Actually, I’m sure I didn’t.”

“Any more than I told you I respect the courage it took to walk away from everything you’d known — even if you did dislike it — and make it on your own?” 

I blinked in surprise. “Really? You do?”

“Is that so difficult to believe? You know I value independence; you didn’t think I’d like seeing that quality in you?”

“I thought you’d be angry I walked out on something,” I admitted.

“Some things deserve to be walked out on.”

“Incidentally, dislike is a very mild word for what I felt. I hated being locked up in there.”

“Was there _nothing_ good?”

“The training. The library. Some of the people and most of the food. There were distractions, and Oliver tried very hard to keep what he calls his ‘talented malcontents’ challenged and interested enough that we didn’t go mad, but even the First Enchanter could only do so much before the Templars took note. So you see, beneath the veneer of good there was always the truth of the place. It was a prison, and deep down you always knew if someone in power took enough of a dislike to you — or even an unhealthy liking for you — they could do whatever they wanted and there was nothing you could do about it. Even if nothing happened ever, you were alive at their sufferance and always watched. Some people didn’t seem to mind. I did. And I hated every fucking minute of it.”

A breeze rustled the leaves around and above us. Father looked up at them as though they were whispering answers to him, taking a few minutes before turning his attention back to me. “I never endorsed the Circle system. At least not the draconian version that it became. Maybe it had its uses for some people, but I think we could have handled your situation and training perfectly well ourselves.”

I bit back a laugh — that was Father’s attitude through and through. He was a great believer in his ability to handle things without outside interference. “I think so too. Too bad they wouldn’t let us try.”

He shifted on the bench, looking critically at the chipped corner of the table. “Hmph. How do you suppose that happened?” His eyes met mine. “So. How do we go about constructing a relationship?"

"Good question," I said. "This would be much easier if we _were_ strangers. There would be no expectations."

" _Are_ there expectations?" He looked at me quizzically.

"I expect so."

He stared at me for a moment then laughed.

I smiled and said, "Seriously, I suppose we go about it by just...talking."

"Your mother talked to you last night," he made it somewhere between a statement and a question.

"She's not quite as skilled at walking away from a fight and staying away," I said with a slight smile.

"Ah. I didn't realize you'd acquired that particular talent."

"I didn't realize I'd acquired it from _you_ ," I replied. "She thought it might be nice to find out a bit about me."

"Your mother's a smart woman. What did she find out, or should I ask her?"

I leaned forward on the table, resting my elbows on its surface. "She didn't tell you?"

"She seemed to be of the opinion that I should talk to you myself," he said wryly.

"I don't think she'd be put out if I tell you I showed her some magic. She seemed to like it."

His face twitched into just a hint of a frown. "Magic. I suppose you do that a lot, don't you."

" _Must_ you make it sound like we're talking about masturbation?"

He looked down at the table and back up, eyes crinkled with amusement. "I deserved that. Sorry. It's going to take me some time to wrap my mind around the idea that magic isn't necessarily bad. You _can_ thank the Chantry for that."

"At least Cassandra's trying to make some long-overdue changes," I commented and, noticing his blank look, added, "Divine Victoria. She's a friend of mine."

"Of course. I tend to forget the rarefied circles you've moved in."

"I wasn't trying to name drop."

He raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you?"

"If I were trying to, I could be very annoying," I said blandly. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't see very many of those people any more. The moment you leave their world and all their machinations, you may as well have never existed."

"That's the Maker's honest truth," he said grimly, then smiled again. "I've had some experience with that."

"You?" I tried to imagine where that might have happened and couldn't. "When did you ever leave _any_ group?"

"There are countless things about me you don't know, my boy. Perhaps I'll even tell you some of them."

"That seems only fair," I said.

He fixed me with a Look I remembered from my childhood; it usually occurred right before a lecture on my future responsibilities. "Kai, would it offend you greatly if I ask what it is that you _do_? From the time you disbanded the Inquisition to now, all I ever hear is _it's complicated_."

I sighed. "That's because it is. I don't do just one thing. I've been a member of an organization for some time that…contracts out our services to those who need them, but since no two contracts are the same, it's complicated. For a year or so I worked as an outrider specializing in Tevinter runs."

He wrinkled his nose. "An outrider? As in a sell-sword?"

"No, as in I escorted people to and from their destinations in Tevinter. I provided protection."

"But how do you protect anyone?"

I wondered for a moment if he was being that dense just to bust my balls, but he seemed truly baffled. 

" _Magic_ , Father. My greatest strengths are in combat and elemental magic and I'm bloody good at it. Most of my time in the Inquisition wasn't spent at state dinners, you know. I was out in the field in just about every maker-forsaken place possible in Orlais and Ferelden fighting what sometimes seemed like every bloody life form this world could throw at us because, among other things, I was the only one who could wade into a rift spitting out Fade demons and _close_ the fucking thing. Believe me, the Fade demons weren't just standing around waiting for someone to come along and do that. By the time I shut down the Inquisition I could pretty much fight run-of-the-mill things like packs of raiders in my sleep. So yes, I offered protection and I had a damn good reputation for providing it. What in the world do you _think_ mages do?"

For the first time I could remember, he looked utterly flummoxed. "Well…they kill people with fire and lightning, get possessed at the drop of a hat and go mad because Fade demons tempt them. And they…study magic?" He gave a sudden bark of laughter. "Andraste's tits, that sounded idiotic to _me_ ; I can only imagine what it sounds like to you."

"That's part of the problem. Most people have no idea what we do; they just have a headful of horror stories they've heard over the years. And if some mage _does_ kill someone or become possessed, that makes it even worse for the rest of us because to them that's _proof_ that all the stories are true."

"There are blood mages, though," he said.

"Yes. There are also people who murder people with axes or poison. Bad things exist, imagine that," I said with only a tinge of sarcasm. “You’ll note, though, that when something big enough happened that they _needed_ mages as part of their armies, they were always more than happy to let us out to put our lives on the line. That is, as long as the mages who survived were locked back up again as quickly as possible.”

“A legitimate point I didn’t quite pay attention to last night,” Father said. 

I was a bit surprised he not only remembered my saying that, but acknowledged it.

"You didn't show your mother a bunch of combat magic, did you?"

I grinned. "She probably would have enjoyed it, but no. That's not the only thing I do." I directed his attention to my left hand. "This wouldn't be possible without magic. In fact, it required a form of blood magic, but the only blood that was or _could_ be used was my own, so I challenge you to find something evil in that."

"Feel like giving me a demonstration, then?"

I did as he asked, choosing spells that would appeal to him and his appreciation for practical things. As well as a few of the flashy combat spells I knew he’d expect, I showed him spells to cast light, ward for perimeter alarms, create sound barriers, track a person or thing and clean dirt and blood off oneself. 

I think he enjoyed it, but he was considerably more uncomfortable than Mother. Something about magic seems to offend his sense of order. When I finished, he thanked me and suggested we head back to the house. 

We remounted our horses and continued down the path, the trees keeping the afternoon sunlight at bay. I waited for him to say whatever it was he was thinking, but he kept silent so long I decided to bring up something that had bothered me for years.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," he said. 

"Back when I was thirteen…who reported me to the Templars?" 

He looked over at me. "If you're wondering if it was us, I assure you we had _no_ idea you had magical talent."

"The thought had crossed my mind, but you both seemed too shocked. _Someone_ had to, though."

"I was told it was a groundskeeper. Apparently he saw you practicing?"

_I'd first discovered what I could do when I was around twelve and had been secretly practicing ever since. I remembered going as far away from the house as I could, choosing times when my parents and the staff were all busy. I hadn't even taken my horse because I didn't want anyone to notice I'd left._

_I knew it wasn't safe, but I also couldn't get over the amazing shit I was able to do and the more I practiced the more the talent seemed to want to be used. My elemental powers had manifested earliest, so the first things I was able to make were big, wobbly fireballs that burned themselves out almost immediately and little burps of electricity that tended to flash brightly into nothing nearly as soon as they were conjured. I was lucky I hadn't injured myself with them, but at thirteen you never think about things like that._

_I was convinced I'd been undetected. I was wrong._

"Suppose he thought he was just doing his duty," I said sourly.

"Will you at least admit you needed training?" he asked.

"I fully admit it. Every mage needs proper training. I even admit the Ostwick Circle did a very good job training us. It's the _locking you up for the rest of your life_ part and the rest I told you that I strenuously object to. I think I've more than proven I did not require imprisonment and I'm sorry, but I don't think I'll ever be anything but angry about that. I can't help it."

He was silent for a very long time. I figured he must have decided he had nothing to offer when he said, "I agree."

"Excuse me?" I reined my horse to a halt and so did he.

"I agree," he repeated. "I don't know about every mage, and I'm not sure as many of them are benign as you say, but what they did to you was cruel and unnecessary. I'm sorry you had to go through that. And I’m damned sorry I was never able to do anything to get you out of there." He clicked his tongue, urging his horse forward again.

I followed in silence, somewhat shocked and more touched than I'd thought possible at his simple admission. I'd never expected to hear those words from him. You know that cliché where someone in a tale feels a cold place in their spirit thaw when something profoundly good happens? It's a cliché for a reason; I was honestly feeling something like that. 

So of course I dealt with the unfamiliar feeling in a dignified and mature fashion: I trotted my horse up next to his, said, "Hey! Race you back," and urged my horse forward before he could react. In moments he was pounding up next to me and we raced to the stables in a dead heat. I think my horse may have been a fraction ahead of his at the finish, but it didn't matter. What did was that was the best time my father and I had had together in twenty-five years.

**=#=**

We dismounted and as we left the stables he looked at me with uncomplicated approval. “You’re a good rider.”

I gave a nod of agreement. “I’m also good at dancing, Wicked Grace and other assorted card and board games. I’m an adequate cook, know my way around a forge and I once beat a Qunari raider to death with a prosthetic arm before breakfast.”

He stared at me. “You aren’t serious.”

“Oh, I am,” I said earnestly, “I really am an adequate cook.”

Fortunately that had the desired effect: he laughed. “I can see I’ll need to keep reminding myself that you have not had a normal life,” he said as we walked into the house.

“Then you wonder why I keep telling you _it’s complicated_.”

“I’d say you’re doing a fine job of making up for that lost time.”

I looked at him quizzically. “Excuse me?”

“I daresay you’ve done more in the last – how long has it been?”

“Since I walked away from the Circle? Nearly eight years now.”

“With two of those here in Ostwick. You’ve done more in the last six years than most people do in a lifetime. Myself included,” he added.

“I didn’t set out to,” I admitted. “Things just kept _happening_.”

“You could have just settled down in Hasmal after the Inquisition.” He sat in an armchair.

I perched on one of the barstools. “No, I could have tried; I did after a fashion. But even aside from my relationship, there were parts of my life that were still unresolved after the Inquisition and settling in Hasmal wasn’t going to fix them. There was some leftover nastiness _from_ the Inquisition that followed me and we fortunately managed to put it down, but some of it's still ongoing. I'm not in the forefront this time, but nothing will be truly settled until it's been eliminated.”

“And this nastiness has something to do with Tevinter?”

“In part. It’s not anything Tevinter’s done; it’s more the perpetrator of the nastiness has set up one of his main bases of operation there," I said, adding, "but I’m full of shite if I tell you that’s why I was going up there all the time.”

“The Vint again,” he said, making a face.

 _Enough._ “You know, Father, I’ve been trying to show you respect. You may not approve of my choices, but you could at least do the courtesy of showing me the same,” I said flatly. “We’re making some progress, so I’m politely asking you not to deliberately piss me off.”

He flushed (with our fair skin, it’s not something my family can hide easily) and I braced myself for shouting, then realized what I was seeing was embarrassment. “I…oh, maker’s breath. I apologize, Kai,” he said. “I’d say I was treating you like a thirteen-year-old, but I’m afraid it’s closer to the truth that I’ve been acting like one. If someone talked to me like I’ve been talking to you, I’d want to clock them.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling stunned all over again. I couldn’t remember him ever apologizing for anything.

“However, you’ll not persuade me to approve of Tevinter.”

I snorted. “I’m not asking you to approve of _Tevinter_ , I’m just requesting you have some respect for the choice I’ve made in regards to who I spend my life with. Technically, you should be _thanking_ him: it was Dorian who persuaded me to come down here for a proper visit rather than hiding out in town and just coming out for a few hours a day like last time. He thought it was important.”

“Why would he care?” Father said skeptically.

“Because he loves me. Because he and his father had…problems, and they had only just started to reconcile when his father was murdered; that’s how he became a magister, by the way. Because he knows how it feels when things are broken with your family and he wanted better for me while there was still a chance to fix things.” I resisted the urge to fold my arms across my chest and glare at him, instead just regarding him calmly.

Father stared back at me, and it occurred to me that he might have been controlling a few reactions of his own. After all, I was asking him believe that a Tevinter Magister could have purely human motivations for something. He started to say something, stopped, tried again. “Um. Kai. Would you be offended if I spent a few hours away? This all has been a lot to absorb…”

I smiled. “Understood. No, I won’t be offended. I could use a bit of time myself. See you for dinner?”

He gave me a tight little smile back. “That sounds reasonable. I must say, in all the scenarios I imagined I didn’t expect this.”

I wasn’t sure which part of _this_ was specifically getting to him, but I supposed it didn’t matter. “In my experience, that’s pretty much the norm. I think I’ll go see if I can cadge more coffee out of the kitchen staff.” I hopped off the stool and gave him a friendly nod as I left the room.


	3. Day 2 - Part 2 - Templars

I hadn't been lying about wanting some time to myself. I begged another container of coffee out of the cook's helper and went in search of some place I could be reasonably sure no one else would be. Even though things were going surprisingly well, all things considered, the careful dance of what was safe to say, safe to do, was exhausting. The Orlesians are inordinately proud of their Grand Game, but I found their nonsense much easier to deal with than this, probably because I had no emotional investment in the tiresome machinations of those self-absorbed, overgrown children with their silly masks and endless schemes.  

Even though I knew it was the first place my parents would look for me, I ended up in the library. It had always been one of my favourite places in the house, with its rows of dark wooden bookshelves and strategically placed small tables and comfortable chairs arranged by tall, narrow windows that let in the sunlight, so I opted for comfort over guaranteed privacy. I found a spot at the farthest end from the door, poured myself a coffee and sat, rubbing my eyes with my right hand. 

A groundskeeper. I wasn't even surprised. I was tempted to go back to the guest room, activate my sending crystal and talk to Dorian, but we'd agreed aside from brief calls to let him know I was still alive, I should try to concentrate on this visit. Besides, at this time of day he was probably busy. 

I was trying not to think too hard about everything that had just happened with my father; I needed to let the fact that it went well sink in first. If I dwelt on it too much, I knew I would start finding and picking at all the negatives and I didn't want to do that. 

I felt too edgy to read and was in no mood to socialize, yet I felt bored, like there was something I should _want_ to be doing (aside from talking to Dorian). I could have gone into Ostwick itself, but there was only one person I wanted to see there and I’d have to arrange to meet with him beforehand. So I sat, drinking my coffee and thinking. And since I was avoiding thinking about the present, my mind turned to the past.

 _A groundskeeper_.

* * *

_ 18 Bloomingtide, 9:20 Dragon _

_There had been no warning the day the Templars came_. 

It was mid-morning. I don't recall if I was supposed to have lessons that day or not. I remember I was in the library. I think I may have been reading about how to construct full-sized crossbows, because Uncle Oswin had given me a mini-crossbow for my birthday and after over half a year of practice I was pretty proficient with it. I thought next to magic it was about the greatest thing ever. I know I was having an adolescent fantasy about firing off my badass crossbow and using my amazing new talent to have the bolts burst into white-hot flame as they struck their targets, at which point much screaming and flailing and dramatic gouts of blood would ensue amongst the enemy forces while I struck a heroic pose, impressing some indistinct but fabulously handsome colleague so much that he would pledge himself body and soul to me right there on the battlements. 

My first indication that anything was going on was Mother coming into the library with a strange, pinched look on her face. She told me to come with her; there were some people there to see me.

I followed her into the foyer, where three Templars in full armor were standing. As we entered, one of them moved behind us, blocking the doorway we'd just come through. Of course, I knew what Templars meant. Everyone did. They kept normal people safe from mages. If they found a mage, they took them away and locked them up somewhere. If the mage tried to get away or refused to go with them, they killed the mage and kept everyone safe because mages were dangerous and couldn't be trusted not to turn into monsters. Except it turned out _I_ was a mage, and that changed everything. I'd have jumped at the chance to get training, but these grim-faced men and women didn't want to train me. They were there for one reason: lock me up or kill me. I felt an almost dreamlike wave of terror wash over me, but this was no dream.

One of the Templars—a man who was probably in his early twenties—approached me. "Kai. May I call you Kai?" he said. 

He was trying to sound pleasant, I suppose, but all I saw was the Templar armor. Thoughts were racing through my mind like panicked rats: I couldn't go with these people; they couldn't make me, my family was highborn, we tell _other_ people what to do; if they tried to take me my father would stop them; if they took me I'd escape that very night and go on the run, I'd sleep in barns during the day and only come out at night and make my way to Antiva or Rivain or somewhere far away. Maybe even Tevinter where the mages ran things. As I thought all that I nodded dumbly at him.

"Kai," he said again. His breath smelled faintly of onions. "It has been brought to our attention that you can do magic. Is this true?"

I stared at him like he was mad and said “No,” in the most scoffing tone I could manage.

Mother glared at them all and said, “I think I’d know if my _thirteen-year-old_ son was doing magic.”

"I don't think you’re being truthful with us," he said to me, ignoring Mother like she hadn’t even spoken. "You've been seen. We're not going to hurt you, Kai, we just need to know what you can do."

“I can’t do anything,” I insisted. “I don’t know anything about magic and I’m not lying to you. If I could do magic why would I be studying crossbows?” I thought that was a particularly brilliant bit of logic, but the grim expressions of the Templars suggested they didn’t share my opinion.

The young Templar and I went back and forth a bit more with Mother chiming in to back me up. Even though I could see the other two Templars getting restive I continued to deny everything. It was the only thing I could think of to do. How could they say I had magic if I denied it and didn't do any in front of them?

The Templar persisted, suggesting we go outside. “Then you can show us what we already know without worrying about damaging anything in the house,” he said, as if that was my concern.

I shrugged, insisting I had nothing to show them, and we all trooped outside. 

Mother was furious, convinced they had been given incorrect information by someone, perhaps even some malicious rival. I supported her theory enthusiastically.

About this time Father rode up (I don't know where he'd been or who alerted him), demanding to know what was going on. I was jubilant, expecting that now he'd straighten the Templars out and send them packing. I'd just have to be more careful when and where I practiced. Maybe I could hire an apostate who could teach me magic and how to hide from the Templars once this had all blown over (what can I say—I was thirteen and more than a little spoiled).

The young Templar told Father why they were there. 

He looked at me trustingly and said, “Kai? Is this true?”

I gave him a look of wounded innocence. “Of course not. Mother’s probably right—someone’s trying to make us look bad. I’m no mage; you know that.” 

Mother folded her arms across her chest and told the Templars, “I think it’s time you get off our property. Our son’s done nothing.” 

One of the other Templars, a hard-faced middle-aged woman who I took to be their commander, stepped forward, looking every bit as stern as Mother. “We’ll be happy to get off your property, but the boy’s coming with us. He is a mage and he’ll be taken to the Circle. Now.”

Father demanded to know what they were basing that on other than some anonymous accusation. 

The older Templar said, "We know. He’s been seen. Now say goodbye."

I realized Father wasn't going to be fixing this after all. Somehow they knew. _Who saw me?_

The third Templar—the one who hadn't spoken yet—put a gauntleted hand on my shoulder and I panicked. 

I shouted, "No!" added in, "Fuck you!" for good measure, and did one of the stupidest things I possibly could: I lobbed a fireball—ironically it was the first good fireball I'd ever managed—at the man and took off running as fast as I could. 

To this day I have no idea to where I thought I was going to escape; I just had a screaming, frantic need to _get away_. I'm lucky if I made it ten feet before one of them slammed me to the ground, knocking the breath out of me. I was hauled to my feet and held tightly. I tried to cast my sorry little electricity spell, thinking I might shock them into letting go of me, but nothing happened. Of course, that's what Templars do best, shutting down mages.

My parents were both staring at me like I'd grown an extra head or something. 

I shouted at them, “ _Help me, don't let them take me, all I need is training, we have the money, you can get me a tutor, you can't let them do this_.” 

Father looked stunned and crushed, like he'd just been told someone he loved had died horribly. Mother still looked furious. 

The Templar holding onto me started marching me towards their waiting horses. I struggled against him and he told me very calmly that if I kept it up they'd hogtie me and take me to the Circle regardless. 

I begged my parents again to help. “I’m _sorry_. You can’t let them do this. I don’t _need_ to be locked up, _please_.”

Despite my best efforts to deny the Templars the satisfaction of seeing me break, my eyes were starting to leak tears. I didn’t know how they did it, but I knew once the Templars got hold of a mage, they had some way to track you. They’d hunt you down like an animal if you tried to escape. They’d told us that at the Chantry more than once. If I couldn’t make this stop, my life was over.

Father shook his head helplessly, still with that bereft expression. 

Mother…she had the most awful scowl on her face. She looked straight into my eyes and for that moment I saw she hated me. Then she very deliberately turned her back on me and walked away into the house. 

The door slammed shut, and so did my hopes of any rescue. I looked at the Templar who'd been pretending to be nice and said, "But what about my things?"

"The Circle will provide everything you need," said the one holding onto me. He stopped next to one of the horses. The commander came over and very efficiently tied my hands behind my back while the man mounted. They heaved me onto the horse so I was sitting just in front of him, the other two mounted their beasts and they all urged their horses forward.

It would be eighteen years before I saw my parents' home again.

* * *

I realized my coffee had gone cold while I relived that little slice of horror and heated it back up with a small spell. By the time I was done this visit I was going to need a holiday to recover.

"There you are!" I looked up to see my mother. I hadn’t heard her approaching. "I thought I'd find you here."

I tried to put the picture of her turning her back on me, face set and angry, and walking away out of my head. It wasn't easy and for a moment I devoutly wished I'd found a less accessible spot.

"What are you doing?" she asked, sitting in a chair across from me.

"Just thinking," I said. "Felt like I needed a bit of quiet."

She nodded. "How did things go with your father?"

"All right, I think," I took a drink of coffee, goosed it with just a little more heat. "There was no shouting this time. We were quite civil to one another. He even complimented my riding."

"That's lovely, Kai," she said with a smile. "I was thinking—would you like to come into town with me? There are some things I need to pick up, and it would be nice to have some company."

All I really wanted to do was find a nice quiet spot, avoid everyone and feel sorry for myself for a while, but if she was going to try, the least I could do was meet her halfway. "That would be nice," I said. "I think I've done quite enough thinking for the moment."


	4. Day 2, Part 3 - M is for the Many Things...

Though it was quite nice out, Mother brought a jacket “just in case.” 

“Are we taking the carriage?” I asked.

“I thought we’d ride if you don’t mind,” she replied. “Why should your father have all the fun?”

So for the second time in a few hours, I found myself riding with one of my parents. It was better than being cooped up in a vehicle for the duration of the trip. Rather than the main road, she led me to another, narrower route that wound its way through a picturesque section of countryside. 

“I like taking the old road. It’s prettier and there’s less cart traffic,” she explained.

I tried find something recognizable about the old road, which I must have been on as a boy, but nothing triggered so much as a ghost of a memory. It was just a wide, packed-earth track flanked by fences, trees, shrubberies and small fields. Once in a while you could see a farmstead or lone house off in the distance. I’d seen a million roads just like it.

For the first while Mother did most of the talking, keeping things light as she pointed out landmarks along the way. She knows a vast amount of trivia about the area and seemed to have an interesting or humorous story about nearly anything you could point at. I was grateful for her impromptu travelogue as it pulled me out of the depressive funk I'd been sliding into.

Eventually we hit what must have been a boring stretch of road, because she shrugged and said, “There is nothing worth pointing out to you here. Even the hedgerow never changes.”

I chuckled and said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” She looked at me shrewdly, “Is this one of those potentially incendiary somethings?”

“I hope not,” I replied. “It’s something that dawned on me a while ago, but I forgot until today. When I was in the Circle…those few times you came to see me…how did you manage that? They didn’t _let_ families visit that I ever heard of, at least in Ostwick.”

“We fought for it, of course,” she said. “It was bad enough that they took you, but the _way_ they took you. Barbaric,” she shook her head, a ghost of anger crossing her face. “That sort of high-handedness just- just _pisses_ me off. We had to accept they’d never let you out, but I was _damned_ if they were going to leave us with that ghastly day as our last memories of each other.”

I stared at her, completely gobsmacked.

“Close your mouth, dear, you’ll catch flies,” she said.

“What did you do? Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded.

“We couldn’t tell you, Kai,” she said gently. “They watched us like hawks the entire time we were with you.”

“How did you even manage it?” I said again.

“We had a bit of luck on our side. For one thing, Ostwick was a fairly small Circle. We also met a few other families who had had children taken. One of them, their daughter was only six, and they marched in just like they did with you, took her without so much as a ‘sorry’. Disgusting. Out of the three families, two of us were also quite…influential locally.”

I smiled. “You mean wealthy and highborn.” I knew the girl she was talking about, though we’d never been close. We’d been nearly the same age, but when I got there she’d already spent over half her life in the Circle. I remember she was one of the ones who couldn’t understand what I was so upset about.

“Yes. The Chantry and its Templars may be monolithic powers, but their local members had mostly grown up here, and those who hadn’t still had to live in the community.”

“But the Circle kept itself strictly apart,” I said doubtfully.

“There was more trade and interaction with the community than they ever let you know. They still had to feed and clothe all of you along with all those other practical things they pretended were beneath their notice. I’m sure it was different in those bloody great Circles in Ferelden and Orlais, but this is the Free Marches. So we applied pressure in ways they would understand.”

“Do I want to know the details?”

She gave me an impish smile. “It’s complicated.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “So what did you manage to get out of them?”

“A few visits. They insisted those stop once you were adults. A bit of freedom for you to have a few extra things, choose your wardrobe, little things like that.”

“ _Little_ things? That was you? That was _huge_ , being able to choose my own clothes.” I shuddered. “To this day I can’t abide robes. I refuse to wear them.”

“We knew that even back then. You always were opinionated, sometimes about the strangest things. Fortunately your – oh, what do you call them? Your headmaster?”

“First Enchanter,” I provided.

“That’s right. I thought it was a silly-sounding title. He was quite fond of you. I got the impression he felt badly for you. He did what he could to help us. Of course, it was only the three of you that were allowed to see your families, but he said it wouldn’t cause too much of an uproar because most of your members weren’t local so there _was_ no family nearby.”

“They made it very hush-hush,” I told her. “Pulled us aside so the others wouldn’t be aware what we were doing, told us we weren’t to tell anyone. We assumed it was because of the money; we weren’t _that_ naïve about the Circle’s self-sufficiency.” 

“The other part of the deal was your headmaster-“

“First Enchanter,” I repeated.

“If you say so. He was to send us word how you were doing. Nothing so grand as a report, you understand. Just _something_ to let us know you were alive and healthy. That’s how we knew you passed your…thing.”

“You mean my Harrowing?” I ventured. That was the only ‘thing’ I could think of that would have been worthy of mentioning.

“That’s it. That’s the one that’s very important, isn’t it?”

“Well, if you consider life or death important, yes. It’s what proves you’re adept enough and strong enough to be considered a full member of the Circle and safe from being made Tranquil. If it had been a proper school, that would be when you graduated and got to go out into the world. Of course, if you fail in a proper school, they don’t kill you.”

“Kill you?” 

“Yes. The mages who fail their Harrowing do so by becoming possessed. That’s what the templars were there for. Unfortunately, in that particular case they’re necessary. Dorian thinks the entire practice is barbaric.”

“Oh.” She smiled at me. “Well, I’m glad you passed. They said you were remarkably young when you did.”

“Yes. Oliver - the First Enchanter - considered me something of a prodigy. Like I told you last night, I’m rather scary powerful. But when you came to see me it was always so weird and awkward.”

“As I said, they were watching us very carefully. There were so many things we weren’t to say to you. And you were so very angry.”

“I thought you hated me. Then you came to see me a few times and it absolutely confused me because you didn't seem to want to talk to me even though you made the effort to come…" I shook my head. 

"We never hated you, Kai." She pursed her lips. "You really thought that?"

"Yes, I did.” It was the perfect set-up to ask what had preyed on me for years. I took a deep breath and said, “Tell me something, Mother: why did you walk away like that when they took me?”

She sighed, reining her horse in to a walk. I matched her pace. She stared straight ahead and said, “I am so sorry about that. It’s no excuse but…when they showed up like that I had no idea what was going on. I was confused and it was frightening and infuriating. I couldn’t imagine why they were accusing you of something like that. Then when it turned out to be true? I know you were just a boy, but I felt so very _hurt_ that you hadn’t trusted us enough to tell us. And I admit I was angry. I was angry with you and I was angry with those Templars and I was angry at your father and I was angry at myself. When they took you and you were begging us to help you I just…I felt like if I stood there one more second I was going to fall to pieces. And I had a baby to worry about and for one awful moment I was utterly furious with you for making all that happen.”

She gave me a quick, guilty glance. I didn’t say anything or look directly at her yet.

It seemed to be what she was hoping I’d do, because she looked away and continued, “I went and checked on the baby—who slept through the whole terrible thing, of course—and by the time I collected myself and went back out you were gone. It all happened so quickly neither one of us knew what to do. I know it doesn’t help, but understand: it may not have seemed like it to you, but we were still young when that happened. Younger than you are now. And yes, we’d both grown up privileged. We’d never in our lives had someone just _march_ into our world and tear it apart like that. If you’d been kidnapped by thugs or run away, we could have done something about it, but _that_ … There was literally nothing we could do. Once we’d come to terms with what happened we did what we could, but even that was very little. It was devastating to lose you and it was devastating to realize we were powerless to stop it.”

“You know, I never thought about how it affected you,” I admitted, feeling a bit guilty myself.

“Of course you didn’t. I didn’t expect you would. It didn’t end either. Not only had you been taken, but we had to spend years after worrying that Danae had inherited the same talent; that it was only a matter of time until they’d come for her too. I don’t think I truly relaxed about that until she was about fifteen.”

“That must have been terrifying,” I said.

“Andraste’s balls, was it ever,” she laughed humorlessly.

“I guess…” I paused, wondering if I was about to push things too far. _Well, in for a copper…_ “I guess that’s why you always hated my being a mage so much?”

“ _Hate_ is a bit much, don’t you think?”

“No. I don’t. You wouldn’t even say the words. Even after I left the circle, every time you had to admit I’m a mage, you said it like most people would say the words _child molester_. You got Father to back you up in your suggestion I look into being made _Tranquil_ , for pity’s sake. And the looks on your face could strip paint.”

I looked over at her, saw the muscles in her jaws tighten and felt a little bit nervous. At the same time I couldn’t believe the relief I was feeling at finally confronting her about it.

“I…suppose I have been that awful about it, haven’t I?”

“It made me feel like dirt, Mother. You weren’t hating a bad habit I had. You were hating what I _am_. You kept acting like it was a disease that could be cured. It isn’t.”

 She gave me a quick, guilty look then returned to staring at a spot somewhere between her horse’s ears. “You’re right. I did that. For a long time I _felt_ that and…it was only partly because of being afraid for Danae. I…damn.”

She lapsed into silence. I waited, firmly controlling that part of me that wanted to shout in her face, maybe make her hurt as much as she’d hurt me. When minutes passed without a peep from her, I said, “What’s the other part? Don’t you think you owe me that much after all this time?”

“Yes,” she sounded almost angry again. “It just sounds so damned shallow.” She let out a humourless explosion of a laugh. “Your father’s side of the family is the religious one, but I think the only thing that truly upset him was you wouldn’t be there carrying on the family name. I was the one who couldn’t stomach the thought that you’d turned out to be a mage. All those Chantry teachings about mages came thundering back at me along with—Andraste’s tits—” she looked me in the eyes finally, an odd mix of anger and shame on her face, “along with a great big helping of _what will people think? This is a social disaster._ ”

I kept my voice calm. “Thank you for confirming that.”

“I know what it must sound like to you. It sounds terrible to me. And selfish. I was imagining all our peers and so-called friends whispering to each other about the scandal, the _looks_ we’d be getting and…oh, Kai, I’m sorry. Truly.”

I was silent for a minute then said softly, “I know a man in Tevinter. He’s from a family like Dorian’s. Old money, powerful, practically royalty in their society. Every one of them powerful mages, of course. Except him. Somehow magical ability skipped over him completely. It was unthinkable that that could happen in a family of their standing.”

I looked over to assure myself she was listening. She met my eyes, didn’t look away.  “He got off easier than some. His family disowned him once it was clear he would never develop any magical ability. They also went into the legal records and erased any mention of his ever existing. As I’ve said, they take bloodlines very seriously. He was twelve.”

I knew the similarity in ages didn’t elude her because she winced, but all she said was, “He got off easy?”

I nodded. “Some families kill their crippled children rather than admit something that terrible. I think unlike Dorian, he had a sibling or siblings so his parents still had a perfect child or two to fall back on. He rather considers me a kindred spirit, since were we born into each other’s families our respective parents would have been thrilled.” I half-smiled. “I didn’t bother telling him he’d have been more welcome, because my sexual proclivities would have become an issue if my being a mage wasn’t.”

She gave me a cautious smile back. “Then it would have been your father’s turn to be the unreasonable one. He had such fantasies about you carrying on the name and following in his footsteps. It sounds like the man you know in Tevinter turned out all right despite that?”

I gave a short laugh. “He chose a profession where he could kill people for a living. He’s quite charming, though.” 

“…Oh.” She took a breath and reined her horse in to a stop, so I did as well. “Kai, I know it’s probably too little too late but…I don’t hate your being a mage any more. I just had to step back and get out of my own way to see how nonsensical it was. We should have had this talk a very long time ago.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Before you changed your mind?”

“Who knows? I may have changed it sooner.”                                               

“I guess that’s partly my fault,” I admitted. “I’m not sure why I waited this long either.”

“I suppose you weren’t ready,” she replied. “Last time you visited you hid in town most of the time.” She saw my face flush with embarrassment and laughed. “Don’t feel bad, we understand. Mostly.”

“No, you don’t.” I gave her a guilty glance of my own. “I was going to do the same bloody thing again this time. It was Dorian who talked me into visiting you like a proper grown-up.”

“Then I’m grateful to him. I think I should like to meet him.”

“I’d like that very much.” 

As if by tacit agreement, we urged our horses into a trot. We didn’t talk much the rest of the way into town. I don’t know about Mother, but the amount of information I was sorting through in my mind was a bit overwhelming. I had a feeling I was going to be working at it for a very long time.

**=#=**

When we entered town I let my mother take the lead, content to follow along and have a cursory look at the section of Ostwick we were riding through. It wasn’t one I was very familiar with, being in what was considered the rich part of town. 

I’d spent a few years living in the poorer sections Ostwick when I’d walked away from the Circle, but it held no nostalgic attraction for me. It was a tense and lonely time as I’d tried to set up some sort of life for myself without having much of a clue how to go about it. It would have been dangerous to let anyone know I was a mage back then — especially with the Mage-Templar war ramping up, a thing I wanted no part of — so I hid it, being careful to avoid doing even small, casual spells around anyone. The problem was, I’d had no other specific skills. Training at the Circle hadn’t involved shite about basic life skills, as they assumed you’d never need them.

I managed to get a job as a scrivener (with a bit of help from my father in the form of a letter of introduction) and outside of work spent a lot of time trying to sort out how I was going to fit into the world. It was a shite feeling to be doing that at thirty-one.

I talked to people later who assumed that once I was away from the constant observation of the bloody templars I must have gone into an absolute frenzy of sexual hook-ups (the question was inevitably followed by the statement, “That’s what _I’d_ do,” accompanied by lascivious snickering). The truth was that aspect of my life in Ostwick was just as uncomfortable as all the others. In the two years I was there, there were three men. In every case there was no feeling that the relationship would become anything deep or permanent. The first ended because we simply found we had very little to say to one another (I know that’s not supposed to matter when you’re essentially just scratching an itch, but I seem to be designed in a way to feel it does matter). The second went sour, and the third never even truly made it to relationship stage. Little wonder I’d decided I must be destined for a lifetime of short, meaningless relationships when I left Ostwick.

Mind you, I don’t know that all of that was my fault. Ostwick’s a strange city in that it’s pleasant enough—even pretty—but underneath its benign surface it’s a cold and unfriendly place. Unspectacular relationships aside, I met very few people I would have wanted as anything more than an acquaintance, and the good citizens of Ostwick seemed to feel the same about me. That doesn’t bother me, but it did give me one more excuse to avoid visiting the area for years at a time. 

We tethered our horses at the central square for that part of the city and I trailed after my mother as she went from shop to shop picking up items she wanted and socializing with the shopkeepers and other customers. I remembered doing the same thing as a boy, right down to the same feeling of being simultaneously bored and fascinated by it all. The conversations themselves I found rather dull, but it was fascinating watching her interacting with everyone. Technically she was socially above them all and the number of pretentious twats I’d seen making sure everyone knew _that_ was legion, but Mother didn’t do that. She treated everyone as a friend and they responded in kind. They all knew her social status, of course, and she definitely was getting some deferential (and preferential) treatment, but it was primarily because they _wanted_ to be nice to her, not because they felt they had to.

It dawned on me that I was seeing the roots of where I’d gotten my style and philosophy towards interacting with other people regardless of their so-called station in life. I recalled Dorian explaining my own style to me: _Amatus, you’re just relentlessly_ decent _at them until they do what you want_. I was seeing her do something akin to that, as I had since I was old enough to be brought along on her trips into town. It was a rather lovely realization; I would have to tell her.

She took me to lunch at one of the nicer inns. She must have gone there regularly, as the staff welcomed her with easy familiarity. What struck me as utterly surreal, though it shouldn't have, was her introducing me to people as "my son, Kai." I don't know what I was expecting—most likely that she wouldn't say anything at all about me—but it made me feel weirdly self-conscious. I didn't let on I was feeling that way, of course, but it was in the back of my mind. Sometimes I suspect I'm more mentally messed up than I think.

We steered away from any potentially touchy subjects and it wasn't long before I found myself enjoying the lunch. I'd forgotten over the years that my mother is a wonderfully witty conversationalist and a natural storyteller. This was the first time in my life that I'd had a long conversation with her as one adult to another and I was pleased to find I honestly liked her.

The last seven years had given me a lot of interesting and humorous stories along with all the weirdness, so we were able to trade tales and I believe she was enjoying it as much as I was. Another surprise for me was, now that I was able to get past what happened when I was thirteen, how many things I remembered about growing up with them and how many of those memories were perfectly decent. I'd spent so much time and energy suppressing them while I was in the Circle, I'd thought they were gone.

After we finished eating we lingered a bit longer, drinking coffee (like Dorian, she ruined hers putting sugar in it). I don't know about her, but I felt almost reluctant to leave, like some spell would be broken the second we walked out the door. That didn't happen, of course. We split up her small purchases between the horses (she'd arranged a few larger items to be delivered) and headed back through the warm summer afternoon.

About halfway back she reined her horse to a stop. I followed suit, wondering what horrible thing was going to be dropped on me now.

"Kai, things have gone so much better than I'd dared to hope, I was wondering…" she looked at me hopefully, "would you like to stay a few extra days? Is there something you need to get back for?"

I'm afraid for a few moments I just stared at her blankly as my mind switched gears. I seemed to be incapable of assuming something _nice_ was going to happen, and I was starting to piss myself off.

Her face fell and she said, "Of course I understand if you can't. You don't-"

"I don't have anything I urgently need to get back for, no," I finally said. "I'd love to stay a few extra days. Sorry. I just wasn't expecting that. Sometimes I can be a bit dense."

She smiled. "That's all right. I mean, not being _dense_. Which you're not. Dense. I meant- maker's _breath!_ Let me try that again: You'd honestly like to stay? You don't have to just to make me feel better."

"Yes, I'd like to," I assured her, "I'll just need to tell Dorian when we get back."

Her brows drew together. "When we get back? How are you going to accomplish that?"

I urged my horse forward and she paced me. I grinned over at her. "Magic. It's a device called a sending crystal. We can talk to each other with it."

"Do you all use those?" she asked.

"All who? Mages?" She nodded and I shook my head. "No, they're relatively rare and expensive. Dorian got them for us back when he first moved back to Tevinter and I was still living in the south. They've been invaluable for us. You don’t have to be a mage to use them either."

"Hmph," she said thoughtfully. "If the governments and Chantry had any sense, they'd be looking into how to make those available to everyone rather than carrying on with all their silly pissing contests. People might think more highly of mages if they knew you could make things like that. _Practical_ things, not just new and more frightening ways to kill people."

I laughed. "You probably won't believe me, but I've said the same thing for years."

"I don't suppose you know how to make them, do you?"

"Unfortunately, no. That sort of thing is a very specialized skill, and one I never learned. The most I could do is try to get you a set."

"I don't suppose I need them that badly," she said. "It's just a nice idea. Um."

I looked at her suspiciously. " _Um_?"

"There was one other thing. You can say no."

"Mother, what are you planning?"

"I just thought. Not tonight, tomorrow. Since we didn't know if you'd be staying past then I was hoping…"

"You're dithering," I accused her. "What have you arranged?"

"Only tentatively," she insisted. "You can say no. I- _we_ just thought it might be nice to have a few people over. Nothing elaborate, no dressing up involved, just some close friends. They'd like to meet you."

I thought I did very well, not groaning aloud. "How many close friends?"

"… Eight?"

"And do they want to meet _me_ or the former Inquisitor? I'll tell you right now, if they want to meet the Herald of Andraste I'll absolutely refuse."

“Believe me, son, we’re no great fans of the Chantry even _with_ this new Divine,” my mother said darkly. “There might be a few that are interested in the Inquisitor, but no one expects to meet the Herald.”

“Would this be for dinner?”

“Well…we thought it might be easier. They’d spend some of the time worrying about stuffing their faces rather than asking you questions that way.”

I sighed. “I’m probably going to regret this, but all right. As long as it’s informal, no dressing up, no standing on ceremony. I’ve certainly been through worse.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said drily.

“You don’t have any other surprises up your sleeve, do you?” I said, giving her a suspicious glare.

“Of course not. I just didn’t want to bring it up until I saw how the visit was going. Now stop looking like it’s the end of the world. The people we’re having over are all very nice.”

“You’ve already invited them.”

She _tsk_ ed. “With the understanding that it was _tentative._ Honestly, Kai.”

I wondered what I’d just gotten myself into.


	5. Day 2 - Part 4 - Dorian

“It’s awfully early. Has your day been filled with tears of parental regret at the shabby treatment they afforded you or are you packing while we talk? No fatal explosions, I hope?” Dorian’s voice came through the sending crystal.

I’d locked the door to my guest bedroom to prevent surprise walk-ins and contacted him shortly after we got back from town.

“It’s going surprisingly well,” I said. “It’s exhausting, but much better than I’d anticipated. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.”

“I shall refrain from saying _I told you so_ , at least until you get home.”

“That’s why I needed to talk to you. They’ve asked me to stay a few more days. I said yes.”

“Amatus, that’s wonderful,” he said warmly.

“We’ll see. Five minutes after I said yes Mother sprung a surprise dinner party she’d already planned on me.”

Dorian laughed. “I think I like your mother. You poor thing, I shall think with sympathy and just the tiniest touch of amusement of you down there making small town chit chat with the cream of Ostwick society.”

“You laugh? That is cruel and unfeeling, Dorian. Just for that I’ll remember that chit chat and recount every bit to you when I get home. I may even write things down so I don’t miss anything important.”

“Then I shall have to distract you with my alluring presence and dulcet tones as I whisper what I plan to do with you until all thoughts of chitting and chatting fly from your mind like a flock of frightened birds.”

“But that’s why I’ll have _notes_.”

“As if a few scribbled sheets of paper would be proof against me? Amatus, you have been gone too long if you believe your scrivener’s armour will enable you to regale me with tales of quaint country charm.”

“You do know Ostwick is a _city_ as well as the land around it.”

“Kai. Am I hearing you _defending_ Ostwick?”

I laughed. “You’re right. I’ve been gone too long. You shouldn’t put too much stock in anything I say right now; I hit overload some time ago. I’m undoubtedly going to need your help to decompress from all this.”

“I’ll be at the ready. I may even order _grapes_.”

“I can’t wait.” I could feel myself starting to relax just talking to him. “But we’d best change the subject before thinking about it just starts to torture me.”

He laughed. “Agreed. You’re far too far away at the moment.”

"How are you and Swivet getting on?”

“He seems to think it’s utterly fascinating to follow me everywhere, maker knows why.”

“He’s not bothering you, is he?” I said worriedly.

“Not at all. He’s very polite about it. Sometimes he even fetches things for me. We’ve developed a very amicable relationship.”

I smiled even though he couldn’t see me. “I’m pleased to hear that. Are you still creeped out by his paws?”

“I’m coping.”

I laughed. “Are you sure you don’t mind my staying a bit longer?”

“Kai, it’s important. Of course I don’t mind. Just let me know when you’re coming home so I can bake a cake or whatever it is you’re supposed to do when your loved one returns from far-off lands.”

“Since when do you bake?”

“I will _have_ someone bake a cake. It will undoubtedly taste better than any effort I might make and it’s the thought that counts.”

I chuckled. “All right, I’ll let you know. I miss you.”

“I miss you too, amatus. Now go kiss your mother and give your father a manly slap on the back. Or vice versa; I don’t know what your family’s like.”

“Arse. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Don’t I always? I should be saying that to you.”

“I’m trying very hard to curb my tendency to expect something awful to happen whenever I visit here; you’d be proud of me. Thank you for talking me into this,” I said.

“I love you,” he said simply. “Now go. You’re supposed to be visiting your parents, not hiding in your room.”

“I love you too. And I’m going now. Talk to you later.” I deactivated the sending crystal. 

**=#=**

The rest of that evening and night was…interesting. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was comfortable, but it was the closest we'd ever gotten to comfortable. Everyone was taking great care to avoid any incendiary subjects without acting like we were (I don't know how much self-editing they had to do, but for me it was a near-constant background occupation) and somehow it worked. We spent much of the evening playing board games, which seemed to provide the perfect buffer for everyone.

I think the strangest thing for all of us was the simple fact that those years where we would have redefined relationships as I became an adult didn't exist, yet we'd all assumed it would just _happen_. While it meant I had to indulge in some pretty heavy mental gymnastics at times, it was good in many ways that my life had gone in such strange and unexpected directions. It gave them nothing familiar to hang expectations on, and nothing for me to resent them for. 

I wondered how long it was going to take me to stop being surprised that—once I was able to get out of my own way and just view them as people—I quite liked my parents.

They went to bed hours before I was even tired, so I once again found myself in the library, drinking beer (though not to excess this time) and leafing through books and wondering at the fact that I almost felt relaxed. The feeling persisted right up until I went to bed, but apparently no one had told my subconscious: I spent much of the night having one nightmare after another. I put it down to the amount of mental energy I was having to expend compounded by an overload of information and emotions, but it left me feeling beat up and out of sorts when I got up the next day. 


	6. Day 3 - Just a Simple Dinner Party

I attached the prosthesis, pulled on yesterday’s clothes and headed for the kitchen, hoping I’d see no one like the day before, so of course my mother spotted me within moments of my emerging from the guest room. To my relief, she just said, “Good, you’re up. I’ll let you wake up,” and continued down the hall on whatever mission she was on. Once I’d used the facilities and gotten my container of coffee, I returned to the bedroom.

Deciding yesterday’s clothes smelled too horsey, I changed trousers and pulled on my boots then set about shaving. I’d just finished at the washbasin and was about to dig shirts out of my luggage when, with a peremptory knock at the door, my mother walked in saying, “Did you have any laun-“ She literally stopped in mid-sentence, her eyes widening as they zeroed in on my left side.

She’d seen the scars, of course. They’re a rather graphic souvenir of catastrophic armour failure combined with very large Fade demon equipped with equally large claws. They’re also the reason I don’t walk around shirtless as a rule. She stammered, “I’ll -um- come back later. Sorry,” and fled. A few years earlier I would have felt self-conscious about the whole thing, but now it struck me as a bit amusing. I picked out a shirt, pulled it on and finished my coffee, the last of that cross and beat up feeling disappearing along with it. 

I took a second cup with me to the living room. Mother was there conferring with one of the staff about something (probably her dinner party), so I sat on a barstool and waited. It was another sunny, perfect day outside. I watched a groundskeeper tending the plants in the courtyard, decided he was too young to have been the one who turned me in. I heard Mother finish her conversation and cross the polished wood floor. She sat on the stool next to me, drummed her fingers on the bar. “You must think I’m a terrible coward,” she said.

“Why would I think that?”

“Because there was no reason whatever for me to run off like that. It was silly of me.”

I smiled. “You’re not the first person to get flustered. For some reason people think they need to say something to me about it, then they think I’ll get mad at them if they do.”

She laughed a bit self-consciously. “That’s exactly what I thought.” She turned a concerned look on me. “Does it hurt?”

“It did when it happened, obviously, but now? No. Sometimes when I get too run down it gets sore, and I haven’t been able to sleep on my left side for long since then, but otherwise I barely notice it. It just _looks_ horrible.”

“Did it happen when your arm..?”

“No, about three years before that.” I told her an edited version of what happened and how bad it had been. “The stupidest part was, at the time the Inquisition was quite young and they were pushing that ridiculous Herald of Andraste thing. So once they knew I was going to live, my erstwhile advisors were bloody debating whether they should let anyone know I _could_ be injured, let alone that I had.”

“We certainly never heard anything about it,” she said with a frown.

“They kept it quiet, which I didn’t mind, and kept me out of sight at least until it didn’t look like a stiff breeze could knock me over. I needed that anyway. It just pissed me off that they kept trying to play up that chosen by the gods nonsense. After everything I’d gone through I thought I deserved some credit for surviving it rather than being told to pretend it couldn’t have possibly happened.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t try to say Andraste saved you again because you were her Chosen,” Mother said drily, “ _Fighting the Forces of the Fade_ or something equally alliterative.”

I made an amused noise. “I’m sure that would have made them very happy, but we’d argued about it enough by then that they knew better than to suggest it. Once I was up to it I just returned to Skyhold and did diplomatic, commanderey things until I could handle going out in the field again.”

She gave me a grammatically offended look. “ _Commanderey_?”

I shrugged. “You know – running about telling people what they should be doing. Passing judgement on the odd prisoner. Settling debates when you have three or four strong-willed people wanting to do a thing three or four different ways. Commanderey things.”

“I’ve never quite heard it put that way before, but all right,” she said. “They had you passing judgement on prisoners?”

“Just a select few. Not much different from what Father has to do now and then.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really? Land disputes, trade deals and interhouse skirmishing?”

“Well, maybe a bit different,” I allowed. “I was thinking more when he’s had to deal with criminal stuff.”

“The cases where he’s had to get involved are few and far between.”

“So were mine. It’s funny — when it came time that I had to sit there judging people, I remembered Father talking about it and what a serious responsibility it is. I couldn’t have been more than eleven when he told me that. I don’t even remember paying that much attention, but there it was.”

“You should tell him that. Did you have to execute anyone?”

I had to laugh at the look of bright curiosity on her face. “You needn’t sound so happily bloodthirsty at the prospect. I didn’t execute anyone. Whenever possible, I recruited them. If it was impossible, well, I prefer more creative solutions than hacking people’s heads off.”

“That’s good to know,” she said more seriously. “You know we heard quite a bit about what a remarkably good leader you were.”

“I think I did well,” I said. “I didn’t mind that part at all; I enjoyed the challenge of it. It was towards the end when it became less leading people with a common goal and more politics and nasty little games and grabbing power for power’s sake that I burned out. I can play their damned games easily, I just can’t stomach them.”

“And so you decided to spend your life with a Tevinter magister,” she said, “who are known worldwide for their straightforward and transparent methods of governance.”

I smiled and inclined my head in acknowledgement of her valid point. “In my defense, he wasn’t a magister when we got together. And now…I don’t mind _consulting_ , but unless he specifically asks I stay out of it.”

“You can do that?” she said skeptically.

“Yes. Dorian was sure I wouldn’t be able to help myself too, but I honestly have no interest whatsoever in going back into anything vaguely political. Just the thought of it makes me want to get very drunk until the thought dies of alcohol poisoning.”

She chuckled. “I think your father is permanently confused by that philosophy, but he’s always found politics fascinating.”

“I don’t know why. What I predominantly saw was a bunch of over-privileged, mean-spirited, overgrown children playing power games that unfortunately affected vast numbers of people. Pardon my Orlesian, but when they weren’t trying to fuck each other over somehow, they were usually just trying to fuck each other.” I wondered if I should be saying something like that to my mother, but she just laughed.

“Blunt, but true, my son. Believe it or not, it’s the same even on our little local level, though likely not to the extent you experienced.”

“Please tell me this dinner party truly is just friends and not something to satisfy the curiosity of the local elite,” I pleaded.

“Don’t worry; we wouldn’t do that to you,” she assured me, “Not when we’re finally getting to know you. And speaking of the party, I could use some help. Have you had enough coffee to function?”

I allowed that I probably had.

“Good, because Devan - he’s one of the servants - is out sick today so we’re short-staffed.” And the next thing I knew she’d drafted me to help set up tables and pick heavy things up and put them where she directed. I remarked that I should have told her my left side _did_ hurt, but she was unsympathetic.

Once everything was set up to her satisfaction, she cut me loose to do as I pleased for a bit while she saw to whatever complex arrangements she was making for this ‘simple’ dinner party. I took the opportunity to hunt down a pen and paper and dash off a note to my friend Oliver letting him know I was in town if he’d like to get together. It took a bit of asking around, but I finally found the servant who delivered messages and sent it on its way. I then amused myself having a more thorough look around the house, both out of curiosity and on the off chance that I’d left other undiscovered treasures like the mini-crossbow behind when I’d been so precipitously yanked out of my life.

I didn’t find treasures, but I did find the things I’d asked them to store when I left on what was supposed to be my short trip to attend Divine Justinia’s conclave. Looking at them brought a weird sort of nostalgia that was simultaneously pleasant and awful. I didn’t see anything I wanted to take with me, but I rather hoped they’d leave everything as it was. 

**=#=**

Despite my mother’s assurances that this was a casual affair, I did put on my nicer clothes for her party (the ones I’d been wearing had gotten noticeably dusty after exploring the basement and distant storerooms for a few hours). 

I was very skeptical that all her guests were just close friends, but decided it didn’t much matter. I’d just pull the diplomat hat out again for the night. It would be good practice: along with the insults and death threats after Dorian had made it known he was not marriage material because the two of us were together, we’d also started receiving invitations to all manner of balls, parties and soirees. Some of them were undoubtedly from magisters who were curious or looking to embarrass us, but others seemed to be genuinely friendly. Regardless, I knew I was going to have to diplomat like I hadn’t diplomatted since I disbanded the Inquisition, and this would be a good dry run.

Shortly before the guests were to arrive, Mother came to my room (she waited for me to answer her knock this time). She looked me up and down with a bemused smile. “You look wonderful, Kai, but…couldn’t you wear just a _little_ colour? You remind me of the world’s most fashionable undertaker.”

I laughed. “But I don’t wear other colours, Mother. In fact, I’m rather infamous for it.”

“None?” she frowned.

“Well, I’ll unbend enough to wear grey, or even a very dark blue or red if I must, but for the most part, no. I _like_ black.”

She cocked her head to one side and squinted up at me. “I won’t even pretend to understand where you got that from, but the time is long past when I could tell you what to wear. Your father and I will have to be festive enough for all of us.”

“Funny, Dorian says essentially the same thing.” I smiled, adding, “Though he rather relishes the spotlight.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right. Given your reputation, they might be disappointed if we had talked you into something less somber.”

“Don’t think of it as somber, Mother, think of it as dramatic.”

She laughed. “Fine, you’re dramatic. I shall remember to explain that to people. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

She moved to leave then stopped in the doorway. “Thank you for this, Kai. It’s very sweet of you. I know this isn’t your favourite thing.”

“As I was thinking to myself, it’ll be good practice. I’m afraid we’re in for quite a few ‘casual get-togethers’ when I return to Minrathous.”

“Sounds delightful,” she said drily. “Guests should start arriving any minute, so I’ll see you out there.”

**=#=**

Though I’d been to countless soirees, fetes, balls, receptions, socials, masquerades, luncheons and dinner parties, I’d rarely hosted one; even when I was the supposed host, someone else had done all the work and I just showed up at the appropriate time. This time, being there before everyone else and being…if not the guest of honour, then the greatest curiosity made me a quasi-host. All of which is a very long way to say I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with myself while the guests were arriving. As I wasn’t an official host, I didn’t have to greet anyone, but I had to be present.

I circled the perimeter of the living room, which now sported a few small tables by the window wall and some waist-high vases with tasteful arrangements of exotic-looking plants that had been delivered that morning. Father was at the bar, conferring with the red-headed elven servant acting as bartender for the night. I sat on one of the stools and waited while they discussed what to do if someone named Landen started to get out of hand.

Once their plan was in place, Father turned his attention to me. “Feel in need of some fortification?”

“Maybe a bit. I normally arrive fashionably late to these things.” I thought about varying my drink of choice for the look of it, then wondered why I cared what a pile of strangers thought and asked for a beer. 

He chuckled as he sipped his own drink. “Aside from the inevitable curiosity, this should be a relatively painless crowd for you to endure. If you don’t mind a comment, though, I might not mention your recent move.”

I was sure that request was partly for his benefit, but I nodded. “That might bother a few more people than necessary. It’s none of their business anyway, so don’t worry. I won’t mention how nice the weather is in Minrathous this time of year.”

“I appreciate that.” He looked me up and down. “Not budging on the black, eh?”

“No. Though you’ll note the cut and material are quite a bit more fashionable than my normal clothes.”

“I suppose you fit right in in Tevinter,” he said a bit sourly.

“Yes, I do,” I admitted, “though I think a lot of them wear black for different reasons.”

“Such as?”

I grinned. “They’re trying to look scary and mysterious, usually.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you’re not?”

“Well...maybe a little. We both know I’m not likely to win any beauty contests, so you work with what you have and what I have is ‘intense’. Black works well with that.  Honestly, though, I just like black. And I’ve been wearing it so long, I feel impossibly loud and clownish when I wear anything too colourful.”

He gave me a small smile. “Well, at least you’re honest. I don’t think you’re quite as homely as you pretend to be, though I suppose you should ask your Vin- um, Dorian about that since I’m no authority on male beauty.”

I applied a small ice spell to my drink to both cool it more and re-frost my glass before taking another drink. “Thank you for calling him by name.”

“I may learn slowly, but I eventually get there.”

Briala entered the room trailed by a couple my parents’ age that she announced as “Lord and Lady Faerber.” Father gave me a companionable clap on the shoulder and said, “That’s my cue. After Orlais this should be a piece of cake for you, but I’ll be ready to intercept if you run into trouble.”

He nodded at my ‘thanks’ and strolled over to greet the couple, looking slim and dapper in his tailored charcoal-grey and blue suit (which Dorian could no doubt spend a full paragraph describing). I leaned against the bar and told myself it was stupid to feel nervous about this when I could meet and match wits with world leaders without a hint of discomfort.

As more people arrived, it was time to mingle and be sociable before the meal was served. I dusted off my conversational (and observational) skills and adopted my best affable persona. 

I hadn’t thought to ask beforehand what my parents had told their friends about me, so I planned to get them to do most of the talking. As most people like to talk about themselves, I didn't expect it would be difficult. That would give me a chance to tailor my words to their expectations and attitude.

I won’t give a blow-by-blow description of the whole thing, but just try to stick to the interesting bits. 

The first couple that arrived, Rafe and Eloise Faerber, were both short and plump with thick grey hair (though his likely spent its nights on a wig stand). They were nice enough but seemed a bit uncomfortable around me. Not difficult to figure out why. One of the first things Eloise said (with a patently phony smile pasted to her face) was, “Well, this is a first. We’ve never met a mage before. Is the black to show you were part of the rebellion?”

Rafe wanted to know how l was finding Ostwick after being away so long and where was my mage staff.

The conversation limped along like that for the few minutes good manners demanded then we parted ways with insincere promises to chat again later.

Franka Jaynes — tall and angular, with lively grey eyes — greeted me warmly, saying, “Kai, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last; we’ve heard so much about you.”

“All exaggerations, unless they happen to be complimentary,” I said, eliciting light laughter.

“We hear you’ve been living in Hasmal,” said her husband, Guilbert. He was also tall, but a bit pudgy.  “Do you know Erwin Bothington by any chance?”

“Never had the pleasure. He’s the one with the oversized custom-made coach from Orlais, isn’t he?” I knew very well he was. And also that he was an insufferable twit.

“That’s him,” Guilbert said. “We went to University together. He was a bit of a show-off back then, always putting on airs, but a good deal of fun when he got a few drinks in him. I daresay he hasn’t changed much. You should look him up.”

I said something non-committal but agreeable.

“If you don’t mind my asking, are you still with that Tevinter fellow?” Franka said. “Don’t worry, your parents haven’t been telling us all about your private life. I read Varric Tethras’ book about the Inquisition and if even half of it’s true you’re quite the hero. If it’s none of my business, just say so.”

“I don’t mind, and yes, we’re still together,” I said, choosing to ignore the hero comment.

“We should send Damien to him for pointers,” Franka said to her husband, then to me, “Our son. Two failed marriages, countless relationships, two legitimate children and three bastards, and I’m sorry to say the fault for the breakups usually seems to be his.”

“It’s because he can’t keep it in his cursed trousers if there’s a good-looking female in spitting distance, but I’m sure Kai doesn’t want to hear about that,” Guilbert said. “He’s doubtless got more pressing concerns. How _is_ Hasmal these days? I haven’t been up there for…Maker, must be nearly ten years now. They still letting anyone live wherever they want there, or have they gotten big enough to have an alienage?”

“No alienage, which is one of the things I like about it,” I said. 

He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve not heard that as a selling feature before. What’s your problem with alienages?”

“I have close friends who happen to be elves, and I think treating an entire race as though they’re inferior for no particular reason is ugly and wrongheaded. Alienages are part of that systemic discrimination.” I saw their expressions darken and added, “But this is neither the time nor the place for that discussion. How long have the two of you known my parents?” 

They seemed happy to take the proffered change of subject, talking about how the four of them had been good friends for fifteen years, got together weekly to play cards and every year went on holiday together, usually to a new seaside resort. Prosaic as it was, I found it interesting since I’d no idea my parents did anything of the sort.

The laws of mingling demanded no one spend too long talking to any particular people, so several minutes later we parted ways. It was all very amicable, but it did make me wonder if my parents shared their friends’ shite attitude toward elves. I hoped not.

As I made my way back to the bar I was intercepted by another couple. The man had short, dark hair and pretty green eyes that made me wonder if there was some elf in his ancestry. His wife was blonde and athletic-looking. They both looked younger than they probably were if the ages of everyone else were any indication. They introduced themselves as Sig and Alwyn Musiol (she was Sig).

After the usual banal pleasantries, the conversation took an unexpected turn. They paused and Alwyn gave Sig a _go ahead_ look. She took a deep breath and said, “Would you mind if we asked you something a bit more serious than the usual party fare?”

“Of course not. Shall we get a drink and sit for a few minutes?” They agreed, so I was able to refresh my drink after all. We sat at one of the tables that had been set up along the wall of windows.

“I suppose you’re not surprised to hear we know you’re a mage,” Sig started.

“I think that’s common knowledge these days,” I replied.

“Yes, well. I suppose I should say we knew a long time ago.”

“Back when they didn’t want that bandied about?”

“Yes. That’s how we met your parents,” Alwyn took over. “You see, our daughter is a mage too. They were quietly looking for other families who’d had mage children taken from them. The idea was enough of us might be able to pressure the system into allowing us access to our children at the very least.” He smiled tightly. “Or in your father’s case, to allow him to see to your training rather than all that Circle nonsense.”

“You can imagine how well that went, given we were going up against the entire Chantry and all its Templars,” Sig said.

“Considering I was locked in the circle for eighteen years, I have a very good idea. That you were able to get any concessions at all was impressive, not that I found out anything about that until after I got out. Would I have known your daughter?” I asked.

She shook her head. “We weren’t living in Ostwick when Chiara was taken. She was only eight.”

“Where were you?”

She scowled. “Kirkwall.  We stayed for years after they took her, but they refused to let us see her. We got a few letters from her at first — short things that were obviously monitored to ensure they said nothing of substance. Then they stopped those in favour of a short note each year saying she was fine. Eventually we had to give up. We moved to Ostwick because we had holdings here and we’d grown to despise Kirkwall.”

“And then we met your parents,” Alwyn added.

“Is your daughter still in Kirkwall?” I had a feeling the answer wasn’t going to be pretty.

“First, may we ask you something?”

I took a drink and nodded. “Of course.”

“You- we gathered from everything we’ve heard that you’re quite powerful. As a mage, that is.” He looked at me searchingly.

“And you know powerful people as well,” Sig said. “You’re _with_ a Tevinter mage?”

“Yes to all the above,” I said cautiously. “Is there something you think I might be able to help you with?”

“They know different magic in Tevinter, don’t they? Older magic?”

“It might help if you explain what you’re looking for.”

Alwyn sighed. “After the Circles fell apart, we did see Chiara again. In fact, she lived with us for a time. She…doesn’t any longer.”

“What we’ve been trying not to say,” Sig paused to take a swallow of her drink, “is they made Chiara Tranquil. We didn’t understand what that meant at first.  We found her and brought her home but…it was too hard. It wasn’t just that she barely remembered us, it was that she didn’t care. She _couldn’t_ care.”

“I know what it did to her,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“We were just wondering…if maybe you knew of a way to reverse it?  Or if your -husband?- might?” Alwyn looked at me with such hope.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “There’s no reliable method I know of. I wish there was.”

“Well…it was worth asking. Thank you,” Sig said. 

Alwyn sighed. “She was such a lively little girl. Always curious, wanted to know _everything._ ” His eyes met mine. “She wasn’t dangerous. She wasn’t rebellious and she never set out to cause trouble. She was just very bright and strong-willed. Why would they _do_ that to her?”

I debated giving them a safe, candy-coated answer, but after all they’d been through they deserved the truth, and the bastards that had done it to her didn’t deserve to have their cruelty mitigated. “Quite often, just being bright and strong-willed was enough, depending on the Circle you were lucky or unlucky enough to get trapped in. My own First Enchanter told me how frequently the ability to order us made Tranquil was abused. Kirkwall was one of the Circles you heard horror stories about. I know it doesn’t help much, but I’m sure your daughter did nothing to deserve what was done to her. She was just…inconveniently challenging to them.”

“Should have blown up more than their bloody Chantry if you ask me,” Alwyn muttered, then blinked. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring things down like this. We just hoped…”

“I understand. I wish I _could_ help you, but even Tevinter doesn’t know how to safely reverse Tranquility.”

Sig had been silent, but now she said, “So does that mean if she had been taken to Ostwick…that wouldn’t have been done to her?”

 _Shit._ “Yes,” I admitted. “Our First Enchanter tried to work with his brightest mages to ensure there was no reason for the Templars or anyone else to recommend something as extreme as Tranquility. He’s a good man, and had quite a bit more autonomy than anyone in Kirkwall ever did.”

She gave me a knowing look. “You were one of those bright ones, weren’t you?”

I just nodded.

“Well. I think we’ve taken up enough of your time,” Sig said. “This is supposed to be a _fun_ night. We should probably mingle.”

“Indeed.” Alwyn drained his drink and said, “Thank you, Kai, for telling us the truth. I always thought that was what happened, but of course no one from Kirkwall would admit it. At least _you_ made it out.”

We all stood and Sig said, “It was very nice meeting you at last.” Alwyn nodded and we parted ways. 

_Well, that was unexpectedly depressing._ I made my way back to the bar, unworried at my rate of alcohol consumption because dinner was going to be served soon. As I waited for my drink, a young woman came up next to me. She had long, coffee-brown hair and light brown eyes with a slight uptilt at the corners. Her features were strong without being masculine. She ordered her own drink and looked sideways at me, her expression somewhere between assessment and amusement. “You must be Kai,” she said.

“Guilty as charged.” I took my beer and cooled it a bit more before taking a sip. “And you are?”

 “Lady Adelind Bousquet,” she said with a flash of a smile.

“As in a bunch of flowers?”

“There’s an ‘s’ in the middle of it I’ve been told makes all the difference. I’m glad I caught you here. Can I talk to you alone for a moment?”

I shrugged. “Why not? Though I must warn you you’re doomed to disappointment if you were hoping for a passionate assignation in the nearest coat closet.”

She laughed. “Well there goes that fantasy. In that case, a quick conversation will suffice.”

We walked casually into the short hallway that did lead to the cloak room. “Sorry for pulling you away from your party, but I wanted to warn you,” she said.

“Warn me?” I echoed.

“My mother, Vibenia. She’s off powdering her nose, thank Andraste. She’s been waiting for you to have a free moment.”

“I take it she wants something,” I said drily.

“Oh, yes. She’s going to introduce you to me. She will skillfully work into the conversation the fact that I am not married.”

“And should I turn her down flat or express polite but insincere interest?”

“You’re assuming I don’t want you to express enthusiasm?” 

“I think if you were of the same mind as your mother about her plans, you wouldn’t want to pull me off to the cloak room for a private chat.” I gave her a conspiratorial smile.

She chuckled. “You’re right. It’s not just that you’re not my type — which, I’m sorry, you’re not — it’s that she’s so determined I marry _up_ , she keeps trying to offer me to every unattached man who’s Free Marches nobility.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying you’re not nobility?”

“Mother was a commoner. _She_ married up. Then when I was fourteen, Father died and she’s been horribly insecure about her position ever since. She sees my marrying as a way to ensure it.”

“I see. Then you’ll be relieved to know that not only are you most assuredly not my type either, but I am already _very_ attached to someone. I also don’t live in the Free Marches anymore, so I’m the last man she’d want you marrying.”

Her eyes shone as she smiled happily. “Thank the Maker. Mother was very taken with your having been the Inquisitor, so much that she decided she could handle your being a mage. I think she saw you as being able to introduce me into high society beyond the Marches. She would accept a move to Orlais, for instance.”

I laughed. “Adelind, the last place I want to go is Orlais. But that does bring me back to my initial question. Do you want me to shut her down or give her false hope?”

She tapped a finger against her lips, thinking. “Could you let her down easy? She’s a pest, but she means well.”

“Consider it done. You’ve got me curious, though — what do _you_ want?”

“I’m only twenty. I’d like to go to the university in Markham. Get away from Mother’s machinations and meet some nobles that are more _my_ age. Or I’d like to travel; make a grand tour of all the Free Marches or even spend a year in Orlais. I’ve no problem with marriage, but there have to be a few prospects out there who aren’t old enough to be my father. Um, no offense.”

“Only a little taken,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. “But those all sound like reasonable options. I suppose I should wish you good luck now, since I’m not to know all this when we get introduced.”

“Thanks.” She mimed wiping sweat from her brow. “I appreciate the good wishes _and_ your curbing Mother’s enthusiasm. We’d better not walk back out at the same time or she might see us.”

So I left first and made my way to the facilities. When I returned to the living room Adelind was deep in conversation with Franka Jaynes. I got another drink and found an untenanted corner of the room. I wasn’t alone for long — my mother came up, an expression of happy panic on her face that I recognized from seeing it on our diplomatic lead, Josephine Montelier, so many times during Inquisition functions. 

“Have you been introduced to everyone yet?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. I’ve met most of them, though. They seem nice enough.”

“You think? Oh, good. Do you think they’re having a good time?”

I smiled. “Mother, you know them better than I do, so wouldn’t you be able to answer that more easily?”

She blinked. “Oh. You’re right. Are _you_ having a good time?”

I said I was and she left again, muttering something about checking with the cook.

Next to find me in my corner was the final couple I’d yet to meet. Landen Volland was a heavyset man with thinning grey-brown hair and aggressive eyebrows. He was a bit shorter than me but considerably broader. His eyes were gimlet blue and he sported a close-cropped beard that had gone almost entirely grey. Nicola (“my friends call me Nic”) was a good twenty or more years younger, short but well-proportioned. She had thick black hair and wide, blue-grey eyes. They said they just wanted to introduce themselves, but would wait until after the meal to chat and off they went.

I was expecting Lady Bousquet, and saw her looking over towards me, but she kept her distance. I assumed like Lord Volland she’d decided after dinner would be more appropriate. To my relief, my father joined me instead.

“Having fun yet?” he enquired.

“It’s been relatively painless so far,” I said. “You didn’t tell me I had to watch out for trolling matchmakers, though.”

He squinted. “Who - Oh.” His expression smoothed into mild amusement. “Let me guess — Vibenia Bousquet?”

“I’ve been warned to expect an attempt,” I said.

“She’s a nice woman, but she does have a bee in her knickers about getting her daughter married off to a suitably noble candidate. I’m sorry, it didn’t occur to me that she’d consider you fair game.”

“She doesn’t know I prefer men?”

“No one thought to mention it to her, no. I assumed your being a mage and not living here would be a sufficient deterrent.”

“I’ve been asked to let her down easily by her daughter. Looks like I’ll get to eat first.”

“At least you know you have something to look forward to afterward.” He smirked.

“I didn’t know you were cruel and unfeeling enough to find amusement in my impending discomfort,” I said, giving him a mock glare.

“You’re telling me this is the first proposal you’ve had to turn down?”

“That is hardly the point. Mother promised this would be a _nice_ party.”

He regarded me gravely. “I have faith in you, son. And if my faith is misplaced, well, we’ll throw you the best wedding this side of the Vimmarks.” 

And with that he sailed away looking smugly amused.

=#=

The meal itself was surprisingly enjoyable. The food was superb, of course (venison, druffalo and chicken, four vegetable dishes, potatoes prepared two different ways, plates of fresh fruit and, for those who liked it, a different wine for each combination the diner cared to try). 

Despite Dorian’s dire predictions, the conversation was intelligent and rather witty much of the time. A great deal of it was about local events and people, or happenings elsewhere in the Free Marches and across the sea in Ferelden. I kept quiet and made note of things that might interest or amuse Dorian during those bits.

They did include me as well from time to time. Some conversations were amusing: When they found out my pet is a nug I got all manner of questions and reactions. They wanted to know _do they make good pets_ (yes) _, how long do they live_ (I don’t know - Swivet is nearly two and still seems very youthful) _, aren’t they kind of stupid_ (mine isn’t) _, can they be housebroken_ (yes) _,_ and _what do they eat_ (almost everything, but he hates turnips and adores rabbit stew) _._ The last answer launched a spirited debate on whether rabbit stew counted as cannibalistic for a nug (the conclusion was the same as my own feeling — no, but it was close enough to be unsettling).

Then there were the less comfortable conversations. Though I had never thought to ask, it turned out that my parents had memories and yes, stories of when I was a boy. The subject of children came up (a subject to which I have absolutely nothing to contribute), and _venhedis,_ if they didn’t have some to trot out about me as well as Danae. The stories themselves weren’t anything deathly awful, just typical things like thinking that jumping off the carriage house roof with an umbrella would result in a graceful descent to the ground, not a screaming plummet. The discomfort was entirely in my own mind, as I realized again how much of my childhood I had worked to forget during my years in the Circle, and that in turn made me angry that I’d felt I had to do that.

Some of them had questions about Hasmal, which I fielded easily. I’d been there recently enough that nothing had changed. The only ones I had to deflect were those about particular nobles. They all seemed to think I hung around those circles, when nothing could be further from the truth. There was some talk about the _dreadful_ rash of pranks someone had played on the Hasmal nobility the year before and how they’d stopped as suddenly as they’d begun. I’d been the one who solved that little mystery, but kept my mouth shut about it. Everything from how I’d gotten involved to who the perpetrator was would have been more trouble than it was worth to explain.

Lady Bousquet (naturally) asked me flat out what I was trying to prove wearing all black if it wasn’t some sort of statement in support of the mage rebellion. I don’t know where they all got that idea, since I’d never heard of any particular uniform or colour scheme being associated with the rebellion, which was long over anyway. I told them as much and reiterated that I just like it. 

Lord Volland — who, you’ll remember, was planning on chatting with me after the meal — asked if it didn’t signal an allegiance to Tevinter, since everyone knew they were partial to black up there and I _am_ a mage, after all. I reiterated I wasn’t trying to signal anything, except perhaps a tacit warning not to trifle with me. Thankfully that got them on to the subject of wardrobe and what clothes were best for conveying what messages, which in turn got them onto who was hosting what social events this season and got me off the hook as far as anything about Tevinter.

Once the meal was over, everyone migrated back to the living room and after dinner drinks. I didn’t feel like socializing more, but set myself in diplomatic mode and did so anyway. At least no one was wearing masks and I didn’t have to examine every single thing that was said for multiple layers of subtext.

First up was Lady Bousquet. She was a woman of average height, a bit on the stout side, with pale blue eyes and mousy brown hair coiffed in the latest fashion out of Denerim (so she informed me). She was wearing an outfit all done with flowers in pastel pinks and purples that had, she said, been designed for Queen Anora herself. I suspected if that was true, the designer was probably ejected from the castle along with their design moments after presenting it to her staff.

I think she’d been planning to approach with her daughter in tow, but Adelind had managed to slip away from her so while we waited, Vibenia engaged me in small talk. Specifically, she was thrilled to discover I knew the Divine Victoria and wanted to know “just _everything_ about her.” I edited heavily, since it became clear she didn’t really want to know what Cassandra Pentaghast was like as a person (and it was none of her business), and made my stories rather dull. I was hoping that would curdle her enthusiasm, but she didn’t think the stories were dull and kept asking questions.

Even if I’d found Adelind the most beautiful and alluring creature on Thedas I would have turned down any suggestion of a pairing, because no matter what, Vibenia would have come along with it. I was dying for the girl to arrive just to shut her mother up. Ten excruciating minutes later she finally did and Vibenia got straight to the point.

“Now, Kai,” she leaned in close, giving me a faceful of sherry-laced breath, “I believe we’ve become friends of a sort, wouldn’t you say?”

“Of a sort, certainly,” I said agreeably.

“Well. _This_ lovely creature is my daughter Adelind -say hello, Adelind.”

Adelind said a demure hello that was quite unlike the young woman I’d talked to by the cloak room.

“Now this may be forward of me, Kai, but I hope you don’t mind my saying it. You’re a fine figure of a man in his prime and I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve somehow managed to remain unattached. Of course, I understand between those terrible Templars locking you up in that Circle place and then being Inquisitor and all you didn’t have time to settle down, but now that you’ve finished with that, one does have one’s responsibilities to family, don’t you agree?” She looked up at me with round, hopeful eyes.

“I suppose,” I said, affecting non-comprehension. “That’s why I’m here visiting now.”

“Well, of course, and that’s lovely, but I was talking in a more… _dynastic_ way. You see, Adelind is unattached as well, so-”

“Lady Bousquet,” I began.

“Vibenia,” she interrupted.

“Vibenia. I’m very flattered that you’d think me good enough for your lovely daughter,” _(Behind her mother, Adelind rolled her eyes.)_ “but I’m afraid there are a few things you don’t know about me.”

“If it’s about your living in Hasmal, that’s all right,” she said.

“No, Vibenia. You see, I’m not unattached and haven’t been for a very long time.”

She frowned. “Jasia and Emil never said anything about your marrying. Is it me? Am I being too forward? Perhaps you’d like to get to know my Adelind first?”

“I’m sure Adelind is as delightful as you are,” _(Adelind mimed gagging.)_ “But you see, Vibenia, I’ve been in a committed relationship with the same man for several years now and that is not going to change. My sister will be the one seeing to the family responsibilities.”

“The same- oh.” She actually backed up a few steps. “I see. I apologize. I had no- that is, I thought- You don’t _look_ that way.” Her face flushed redder than her usual rosy complexion. “I mean- Oh, I don’t know what I mean. I shan’t trouble you anymore. It was lovely meeting you, Kai. Your parents are lovely people, just lovely. Come along, Adelind. I need your help with something.” She didn’t run away, but she came close. Adelind shot me a wide grin and a small wave as she trailed along in her mother’s wake. I resisted the urge to laugh.

I was still feeling amused when Landen Volland came bearing down on me. “Kai, glad I could catch you alone. Do you have a moment?”

I responded in the affirmative and he led me to a more private corner of the room (the same one I had claimed before dinner). He took a swallow of his drink and fidgeted. “I normally have a cigar after dinner, but Emil doesn’t indulge. Don’t suppose you smoke?” he said hopefully.

“Sorry, never picked up the habit,” I said. That wasn’t the only reason he was fidgeting, but if he wanted to use it as an excuse.

“Oh well. When in Val Royeaux, eh?”

I laughed politely, wishing he’d just get to his point.

He took another drink. “The thing is, Kai, the thing is I’m a man who likes to get to the point of things.”

I heroically refrained from saying _why don’t you, then?_ , instead saying something about that being admirable.

“Quite, quite. Pleased you agree. Then you won’t mind a little plain conversation. I read that book by Tethras. The one about your Inquisition.”

“It wasn’t _my_ Inquisition. There were many people involved in making it what it was.”

“Yes, yes. As I said, I read the book. You had quite the motley crew, didn’t you.”

“They were remarkable men and women and I was lucky to have every one of them,” I said.

“Of course, of course. Didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. Just isn’t usual, is it? Having elves and ox men and dwarves along with mages running around loose all over the place? Not usual at all.”

“I found it far more effective than the ‘usual’ way of running things.” I didn’t bother to hide my irritation.

He started to bristle then must have realized what he’d just said. “Damn. Sorry. Sorry. Didn’t mean it like that. Different world we’re in now, turns out you mages don’t get possessed on a copper after all. Not my point anyway. You did remarkable work, remarkable work.”

I thanked him and waited for him to say whatever the fuck he was leading up to, wondering why my parents would count him among their friends.

He moved closer to speak more softly. “What I wanted to know- what I wanted to _know,_ is, is it true? You’re with that Vint mage? Or did Tethras make that up to add a little extra spice to the mix?”

“Yes, it’s true. Why?”

His brows drew together as he frowned, making it look as though one bushy line had been implanted above his eyes. “It doesn’t concern you that he’s a Vint?”

“No. Why should it?”

“Come now, Kai. You were a Free Marcher before you were anything else. We all know what Vints are like.”

“Is that so?” I said flatly. “Have you ever met one?”

“Only in passing, only in passing. Up in Ansburg. She was at a trade function with her slaves waiting on her hand and foot while she looked down her nose at all of us. Nasty piece of work, nasty, which is my point. How do you countenance being with a Vint? Is it the mage thing? You think that gives you more in common with them?”

“It gives me a great deal in common with _him_. It makes no difference that he’s from Tevinter. You may as well ask him how he feels about being with a Marcher.”

The man truly looked baffled and slightly offended. “Yes, but there’s nothing _wrong_ with being a Marcher, nothing wrong with it. Maker’s breath, not only is he a Vint mage, but the book says he’s related to bloody _magisters_ and you’d be hard pressed to find a more depraved lot than that. Depraved,” he repeated, looking awed at the thought.

“I’m sure some of your relatives haven’t always been the most upstanding of citizens either, Landen. I fail to see what you’re trying to convince me of.” 

“Just, you don’t know what you’re getting into, getting in bed with the Vints like you are. They may seem sophisticated on the surface, but they’re snakes, every last one of them. Maker only knows what they’ve bred with over the years and the Magisters are the worst of the lot, the worst. You’re from good, honest Marcher stock. If you _must_ be with another man rather than doing your familial duty, at least choose your own kind.”

I gave him a hard look. “Landen, with all due respect, my personal life is none of your damn business. Even so, I’ll tell you this: I know exactly who I’m getting into bed with, both literally and figuratively, and he’s a better man than you could ever hope to be. Also, he _is_ a Magister now. You’ll be delighted to know we’re very happy together. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I consider this conversation over,” and I walked away without giving him a chance to respond.

I’d run into his type before, but I was dying to ask my parents how they could possibly like the man. Father in particular hated people like him. A few moments later I got pleasantly distracted by Eloise Faerber (now drunk enough that she’d forgotten to be uncomfortable around me) asking with honest enthusiasm where she could acquire a pet nug.

The rest of the night was a blur of increasingly boozy conversations about everything from the Inquisition (concerning which many of them were quite well-informed) to the sorry state of popular music compared to that when most of them were young.

They were uniformly curious about Orlais' Grand Game and quite liked that I found it annoying and childish. Some of them had also visited Orlais and Franka Jaynes maintained we were fools for helping Celine retain her throne. I found a kindred soul in Alwyn Musiol, who agreed with me that Orlesian opera was incomprehensible on a good day and only just barely qualified as music.

Nearly all of them wanted to hear my recounting of the attempted Qunari invasion of the south we foiled and listened with great seriousness; Ostwick still remembered the invasion that occurred a few hundred years ago in the Storm age and wasn't inclined to take threats of another lightly. 

As they showed virtually no interest in the earlier defeat of Corypheus, I didn’t bother going into it. Instead I freshened my drink and skulked back to my favourite corner while they carried on a spirited discussion about ways to repel another Qunari invasion. 

Soon Adelind joined me and we entertained each other making cleverly snarky jokes and observations about everyone. In between quips, she dished dirt on the local nobility and pumped me for information about the world beyond the bounds of Ostwick. I encouraged her to find out for herself, as she was clearly bright and ambitious enough to make a life for herself beyond her mother’s plans.

In a brief moment of quiet, I realized to my considerable surprise that I was having a good time.

=#=

Not long after midnight the last of the guests left and the three of us collapsed into chairs in the back living room. Mother kicked off her shoes and Father soon followed suit. I unbuttoned my overshirt and said, “Am I imagining things or did that go well?”

“It went wonderfully,” Mother said with a tired smile.

“Much better than I’d dared hope,” Father said. “Are you sure you don’t want to try your hand at a diplomatic career?”

“I’ve seen what career diplomats have to do. I’d rather chew glass,” I replied. “Besides, it helped that your friends were inclined to like me, at least for your sakes.”

“Truth, Kai? Not all of them were. Not everyone here agreed with what the Inquisition was doing, and some who did thought you were mad to disband it. There were also a few who were flat out uncomfortable that you’re a mage and have been heard to remark on occasion that you should all be locked back up. What impresses me is by the end of the night all but one of them had pulled either your mother or me aside to let us know they liked you very much.”

“Even Vibenia Bousquet?”

Mother chuckled. “I understand she managed to embarrass herself, but she still liked you.” 

“That’s nice to hear, but I still think the fact that you’re my parents had something to do with it.”

Father stood up, stretched and said, “Anyone for a nightcap?”

The answer was affirmative, so while he got my beer and fixed their drinks I said, “Was the one who didn’t say anything whatshisname? Starts with an ‘L’; the heavyset fellow with the bushy eyebrows?”

“Landen. That’s him,” Mother said.

“Ah. He’s the one who cornered me to grill me about how I could in good conscience have a relationship with a _Vint_. Seems to be all he got out of Varric’s book.”

“You weren’t rude to him, were you?” Father handed me my beer and I chilled it a bit more. “Landen has an interesting double standard where only he’s allowed to be rude.”

“I wasn’t rude in the least, but I didn’t let him pull me down the rabbit hole he was aiming for. I simply excused myself when it became clear what he was up to.”

“I’m sure in Landen’s mind that was rude, but well done. It’s his wife we’ve been friends with for years. What she sees in that blowhard…” my father trailed off with a frown.

“She says she loves him, but Nic has always had a mercenary side,” Mother said.

I was content to sit quietly and listen to them dissect the evening. Once again it gave me a nostalgic feeling that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. We finished our drinks and my parents went to bed. I stayed up a few hours longer reading one of the books I’d found in their library and drinking leftover coffee I reheated with a small spell, then turned in as well. I don’t know if it was the fact that things were going so much better than I’d expected or just that I was getting used to the quiet, but for the first time since I’d arrived, I slept well.


	7. Day 4-Where Things Go Swimmingly

When I got up there were two messages waiting for me. The first was from my parents:

 _Kai,_  
_Had some business to attend to - go ahead and get breakfast (lunch?) without us. We’ll meet you in the courtyard an hour after midday (or possibly a bit later; if you’re not in the courtyard just try to be somewhere around the house)._

 _Love,_  
_Mother and Father_

The second was from my friend Oliver:

_Kai!_

_Delighted you’re in town. Trapped in a labyrinth of official meetings today, but tomorrow I can dispose of my shackles for the entirety of the day if I promise Petra she’ll be allowed to do the same at a later date. I assume you’re still nocturnal, so shall we meet at the Rest around half past two? I shall regale you with tales of First Enchantering in this bold new world of mage freedom and you can tell me all about life in the Empire of Evil. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll also assume you find this arrangement agreeable._

_Yr. esteemed friend,_  
_Oliver_

So I had plans for the next day and a few hours to myself. That suited me just fine. I thought perhaps I might visit our lakelet later and go for a swim, then re-thought that with surprise. I’d called it “our” lakelet. That was the first time in over twenty years I’d felt like I belonged in my parents’ world. I’d like to say I sniffed as emotion overcame me, but in reality my nose was just stuffed from drinking too much the night before. 

I got coffee and spent some time up in the attic. My parents had amassed a large and eclectic pile of belongings over the years, and going through them in the name of looking for things that might be mine was proving to be interesting. There were the things one expects to find like furniture and portraits of long-forgotten relatives, but there were other items that made the search worth it. I found an entire set of carving tools in a box along with a half-finished sculpture of what looked like a melted wyvern; a handheld viewing machine which, when you pulled a lever, rotated one-by-one through a set of about eight rather well-executed little paintings of naked women (I considered with mild amusement that it must have belonged to my father); an elaborate little go-to-bed candle holder with a rounded, reflective back and a small drawer to keep the candles in; a long letter written to my grandfather by someone with a loose grasp of spelling conventions outlining the cost of the damages wrought by my father and his friends during their trip to Rialto up in Antiva; a beautifully wrought and very nasty little boot dagger; a series of hauntingly well-done watercolors, all of children in nightclothes running from half-seen monsters in phantastical nightmare settings, all signed by my mother; an intricate set of folding metal opera glasses with a sliding focus and perfect lenses, and the crowning piece — a stuffed nug to which someone had affixed a monocle and top hat. I set those prizes aside with a mind to keeping them if my parents were okay with it.

I emerged from the attic a few hours later, a bit dusty and in need of something other than coffee to drink (even I occasionally hit my limit). Once I’d used the facilities and begged a glass of lemonade out of the kitchen, I went out to the courtyard. The bright sunlight made my eyes water. I took a seat in a shady spot and tried to think what I felt like doing. My parents were due to show up sometime soon, so I needed to stay around the house. I was once again considering a swim when I heard voices approaching.

“…Can only go so far before you’re right off the edge,” a woman was saying.

“Well, you’d think they’d do something about that,” Mother said.

Father snorted. “Antivans.”

Mother said, “Have a seat, I’ve just got to get something.”

“At least this seat isn’t moving,” the woman said. “I’ve had enough of coaches to last me a lifetime.”

Mother rounded the corner and brightened as she saw me. “There you are,” she said, dropping her voice to a near-whisper, “Come with me. Quietly.”

“What are you up to now?” I said, quietly.

She just smiled and led me back to the others. We stopped in front of the table they were seated at and Mother said, “Surprise!”

I recognized the woman sitting by Father, but just barely. She’d been nearly seven years younger the last time I saw her. “Hello, Danae,” I said to my sister. Her gobsmacked expression told me she hadn’t been expecting me.

“Kai? Mother, you didn’t tell me Kai was coming too,” she said accusingly.

“We wanted to surprise both of you. It’s about time you met properly; you are brother and sister, after all.”

She looked up at me. “You didn’t know they were doing this either?”

“I had no idea. Nobody said a word about you coming here.”

Mother said, “Sit, for goodness’ sake! Emil, we should go now.”

“Go?” Danae and I said nearly in unison.

“Of course. The two of you should get to know each other. You can’t do that with us sitting here listening to you.”

Father stood, proffering his seat to me. “Your mother’s right. Have a good time. We’ll be back in time for dinner if we don’t decide to eat in town.” He gave us a smile that looked far too amused and they walked away together.

Danae and I looked at each other. I had absolutely no idea what to say.

She said, “Um. I guess I didn’t say hello. Hello, Kai. How long have you been visiting?”

“Three days. This is the fourth.” As if she couldn’t figure that out for herself.

“How’s it been going? You haven’t wanted to throttle them yet?”

“Not since the first night. Seriously, it’s been going well. Better than I’d hoped.”

“That’s good.” She examined her fingernails, apparently just as much at a loss for what to say as I was. 

“You’re looking good,” I said lamely. 

It was no false compliment. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair was tied back casually — no doubt for traveling — her complexion was clear and she’d done something with makeup to accent her blue-green eyes. She was wearing tailored trousers tucked into soft kid boots the same colour as her hair and a smock-like shirt of dark blue that she’d belted at the waist. 

“You are too. The shaved head suits you somehow,” she said.

We lapsed into silence.

“So Mother must have asked you to come down as soon as I said I’d be coming,” I said.

“They paid extra to get the letter to me quickly. I wondered why she was so insistent it had to be around this date.”

I realized that also meant even if things hadn’t gone well enough that I’d chosen to stay, she’d had some sort of mechanism in place to ensure I didn’t leave until after Danae arrived. I wondered what she’d planned, then wondered at my assumption that it was all Mother. Father had looked just as smug when they left.

“Did you have a good trip?” I asked.

“As good as you can expect. It was mostly boring and bumpy, but at least it didn’t rain.”

I nodded and tried to think of something else to say. 

“Well, this is awkward,” Danae said.

“At least we both feel that way. Think there’s a way to make things less awkward?”

“Was there something you had in mind?”

“Aside from drinking?” I gave her a quick smile. “Um. Assuming you don’t find that offensive.”

She smiled too. “Please. I grew up with Mother and Father. Drinking is a part of my social fabric.”

“You’re much more articulate than the last time I saw you.” 

She groaned. “Maker, of course you remember that. I was such an idiot that day.”

That day was shortly after I’d walked away from the Circle. I’d gone to my parents because despite my best efforts to get started on my own, I needed money. I hadn’t been expected. Danae was nineteen, hadn’t seen me since she was five. She’d said fewer than ten sentences to me and hid in her room most of the time I was there. 

I grinned. “Don’t worry, I didn’t hold it against you. You didn’t know me.”

“I still don’t,” she pointed out. “But this time I promise not to run away.”

“I appreciate that.” I tried to think of something interesting to say and couldn’t. “You know, we don’t have to keep sitting here if you don’t feel like it.”

“Did you have somewhere else in mind?” 

“Well…I was thinking about going down to the lakelet.”

She squinted at me. “The what?”

“You know — the lake. Except it’s not big enough to be a proper lake, so: lakelet.”

“Oh! I always called it the pond,” she said with a smile. “Though it’s too big to be a pond, technically, so I guess you’re right. We could get the servants to put together some supplies and take drinks.”

Had we been in Tevinter I could have just cast a small spell to let a servant know they were needed, but in the south we had to ring for one. We arranged to have drinks and refreshments brought then parted ways long enough to get swimming things. It occurred to me I’d never gone swimming with my new arm on and I wondered if it would be any different.

We set out across my parents’ perfectly manicured grounds (I couldn’t help looking about to see if I could spot any groundskeepers). They hadn’t put a pathway down to the lakelet because Father thought it was more pleasant to walk across the lush grass. We walked downhill toward a section of the grounds that had been allowed to keep some of its original wilderness look with low bushes that hadn’t been trimmed into precise shapes and flowering plants that were indigenous to the area. The grasses were a bit higher and varied and there was even the occasional rogue tree that hadn’t been deliberately placed. I’d always liked that section of my parents’ grounds—it made me feel a bit like I was in a wild place on my own. The fact that they’d added that whole wooded section made me think they might have felt a similar fondness for the less-orderly approach to land management.

The lakelet was in a sort of natural depression, surrounded on two sides by deciduous trees. The stream emptied into it at one end, and carried on its way at the other. In between, the lakelet was big and deep enough to take a rowboat out on it, but small enough that you could swim across in about fifteen minutes at its widest point. Far away to the left of us was a small boathouse and a dock, but neither one of us was concerned with taking a boat out that day.

Our goal was a couple of tables and benches and a determinedly rustic change room on a flat, grassy area by the water. The servants had beat us there and set out the drinks and snack trays. I took a beer and chilled it with a thought while Danae mixed something involving vodka and fruit juice and piled crackers and slices of meat and cheese on a small plate.

We sat across from each other at the other table. For a time we didn’t talk as Danae busied herself eating. I knew I probably should, but I wasn’t hungry so I turned sideways to look at the water and drank my beer. There was just enough of a breeze blowing to keep the heat from being oppressive, and it was stirring little glinting ripples on the glassy surface. Dorian said his estate in Qarinus included a section of waterfront, but the water involved there was ocean. I kind of preferred this little freshwater lake.

“This is nice,” Danae said. She sipped at her drink, watching me over the top of her glass, then added, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to say to you, Kai.”

“Would it help to know I feel the same way? I’m not sure what Mother and Father were thinking — that we’d just pick up where we left off?”

“Hard to leave off when you never started,” she agreed. “Can I tell you something else, then? You make me nervous. And before you think it, not because you’re a mage. Because you’re _you._ ”

“You mean the Inquisitor stuff?”

She shook her head. “Nah. That all seems so storybook I can’t even get worried about it. But you’re the legendary missing older brother. You’re scary and exotic and you look like you could kill someone and go back to eating your lunch and you _probably_ see me as a kid. Or maybe that tongue-tied idiot from seven years ago.”

I stared at her. “You really think I look like that?”

She snort-laughed. “ _That’s_ what you just heard? Come on, you shave your head, you wear all black and you got mother’s side of the family’s face. They _all_ look like they’re going to do something extreme any second.”

“Except Oswin. He looks like he already did it and he’s reminiscing,” I corrected.

“He probably is. Everything you mention he seems to have done at least once if you believe him,” she said with a smile.

I gave a chuckle of agreement and studied my beer bottle for a moment, finally saying, “Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so self-centred. But I don’t think of you as a kid. I never knew you as a kid, so I don’t have a wealth of memories trying to preserve you in amber.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that. Guess that makes me a little self-centred too. Every time I come home it seems like there’s someone telling me something they remember from when I was a kid like it’s still important to me.” She sighed. “This is _hard,_ damn it.”

I took a drink before saying, “You know, maybe we’re going about this all wrong. Just because the parents thought we’d have some kind of immediate connection doesn’t mean we have to act like there is.” 

“So how _do_ we act? I mean, I know people who come into the shop for smithing jobs better than I know you.”

“Well, maybe that’s a place to start.” I spun around on the bench so I was sitting facing her properly. “Hello, Danae. My name’s Kai and I’d like to commission a piece of original silverwork from you. I’ve heard you do excellent work.” 

She smiled. “Nice to meet you, Kai. Is this piece personal? If I’m going to do something personal, I need to know a little about you.”

“Yes, it is.” I pretended to think about it. “I’m thirty-eight years old. I’m a mage, I live in Tevinter with my amatus, Dorian, and our pet nug whose name is Swivet. I’ve done some strange and interesting things in my life, some of which you might have heard a bit about.”

“I may have, but don’t think that’s going to get you any discounts. I take it the silverwork is for your - what did you call him? Amatus?”

“That’s right.” 

“So you’re married? Is that what that means?”

“Well…not exactly. It means beloved. So we’re officially together, but haven’t gotten officially married, you know?”

She nodded. “I get it.”

“So I’ve given you some information; I’d like to know a bit about the woman who’s going to be smithing this very personal item, if you don’t mind.”

She drummed the table with her fingers. “Fair enough. I’m Danae. I’m twenty-six, I live in Antiva City and I’m in my third year of studying to be a silversmith.” 

“So what do you like to do when you’re not studying?”

“Along with working with silver, I like reading, music, going out with friends and playing darts and Wicked Grace. What about you?”

“I like reading, music, magic, card games of all sorts, and dancing.” 

She wrinkled her nose at me. “Really? You _like_ dancing? I’m _awful_ at dancing even though my parents made me take lessons for years. In fact, I believe you know them and are familiar with their conviction that everyone should be made to take dancing lessons.”

I laughed. “I’m very familiar with it. And there were times when I was a kid that I hated them for insisting on it, but I have to admit I do enjoy dancing now. In ways it’s weirdly similar to some of the moves you learn for combat magic.”

“Well it doesn’t help at all with silversmithing. So what do you hate? Aside from dancing, I also hate wearing dresses, the taste of most kinds of melons, and small yappy dogs.”

“You realize I could say something about having never tasted dog.”

“But you won’t because that’s exactly the sort of joke our father would make and you don’t want to go there.”

I grinned. “You’re right. So…things I hate? I despise turnips, spiders and Orlesian opera for starters.”

She raised an eyebrow. “For starters? You have a lot of things you hate?”

“I was forcibly confined for years, slogged through some of the worst wilderness areas on Thedas, had more things than I can count trying to kill me including a few that nearly succeeded, and was involved in high-level politics,” I counted off on my fingers as I talked, “You build up a considerable list over time.”

“Wow.” She smiled crookedly. “Well, I’m still young and carefree. All I have to compare are some travel horror stories, a handful of cotillions and fancy-dress affairs I was forced to attend and some unfortunate past choices in boyfriends.”

“Those can be traumatic too,” I said gravely. “In any case, I’m pleased to meet you, Danae.”

“I’m pleased to meet you too, Kai.”

We reached across the table and shook hands. The funny thing is, I did feel more comfortable.

She polished off her drink and looked at me, round-eyed. “Wait a minute. Did you say you have a pet nug?”

And that was all it took to start having a real conversation with each other. It helped that she thought Swivet sounded like the cutest thing ever and was completely unruffled by my living in Tevinter. On her side, she was equally pleased that I supported her choice to study silversmithing despite our parents’ dismay.

I won’t repeat everything we said; a great deal of it was _getting to know you_ -level stuff and would amount to reiterating things I’ve already recounted. The important thing is I discovered I like my sister very much as an interesting adult person, and she seemed to feel the same way about me. 

Eventually we decided to take a break from all the talking and go for a swim. Danae disappeared into the change room. I had a momentary twinge of self-consciousness about my damned scars before deciding I was probably more worried about them than anyone else. Dorian and some of my friends from the Inquisition had been trying to tell me that for years, but wrapping my mind around that was another thing.

She emerged in her swimwear, looked at me and simply said, “Wow. That looks painful. Did it happen during the Inquisition?”

I said it did and she gave me a wry smile. “Well, no one can get away with saying you don’t have battle scars. What happened to whoever did that?”

“I blew them into salad toppings.”

“That must’ve been something to see.” She smiled more widely. “You know, for all that you’re supposed to be this kick-ass mage, I’ve still not seen you do any magic. You’re gonna have to show me some before I go or I won’t believe a word you say. Last one in’s a flabby fennec!”

She dashed for the water so of course I had no choice but to follow her and the scars faded to unimportance in my mind. What took precedence was the result of another injury — getting used to swimming with my new arm. It wasn’t difficult, but it was a little tricky at first because I needed to check what I was doing with it, and it was under water a majority of the time. I’m a strong swimmer, but for the first while I had to slow down and think about moving my left hand and wrist correctly. I made my way with deliberation out to the platform that had been anchored in the deeper water. 

Danae was already lounging on it, watching me curiously. I pulled myself up and she said, “Is there some reason you need to watch your left hand? I’ve never seen anyone swim quite like that.”

“There is. My left forearm is fake. I can’t feel a thing, so until I get used to the movements I need to watch to make sure I’m doing it right.”

“It is not! Can I see?”

I held my arm out for her to investigate. She felt it up and down, requested I move my fingers and wrist and poked at it again.

She glared at me. “This isn’t fake. As jokes go, I’m not impressed.”

“But it is. I couldn’t feel when you touched it. Look.” I gave my arm the mental command to let go and pulled it off, holding it up and away from my real arm.

“Andraste’s sagging ball sack!” Danae swore, eyes flicking from the arm to my face and back. “How- I could have sworn it was real.”

“A combination of expert artificing and magic,” I said as I reattached it. 

“Did you make it?”

“I wish. No, I paid for it. I’m friends with the people who made it, but something like this isn’t cheap.”

“Wow. Can I..?” I nodded as she touched it again. “That is uncanny. How’d you lose it?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Short version is an accident happened, some poison got into my hand, and a few years later it started spreading and would have killed me if the arm hadn’t been removed. The worst part of it’s been that I’m left-handed, so it’s made everything twice as hard to adapt to.”

“Inquisition shite again?” She shook her head slowly. “I dunno, Kai. It doesn’t much sound like it was worth it.”

“I didn’t really have any choice in the matter, but…I wouldn’t have met Dorian otherwise, and it did change my life for the better all in all, so it mostly was. I could have done without the injuries, though.”

She looked me up and down. “Does the world have something against your left side?”

“I’ve asked that myself,” I said with a little bark of a laugh.

“I think I’ll stick to silversmithing. It’s safer than whatever it is you do.”

“I don’t do that anymore,” I objected.

“What _do_ you do?”

“I-” I stopped. Truth was, I wasn’t sure what I was doing anymore. “I’m still getting set up in Minrathous. I…haven’t fully worked out what I’m doing next.”

Danae laughed. “Mother and Father must just love that.”

“I haven’t exactly told them,” I admitted. “That is, I’ve given them the impression I _am_ doing something specific.”

“I won’t tell on you.” She smirked. “But you owe me now.”

“You only just met me and you’re blackmailing me?”

“Hey, I never know when I might need a high-priced mage on the cheap. Speaking of which, are you going to show me some magic?”

So I did, and it was fun. Unlike most southerners, she wasn’t at all fearful of my magic. She seemed to enjoy it, and asked intelligent questions about everything from what I was doing to how long it took to master. It seemed no matter what prejudices my parents had against magic and mages, they’d not passed them on to my sister. 

I tried to casually ask her about that and she shrugged. “I don’t know what went on between you guys, but they always made sure I knew you were a good person with a talent that took a lot of training to use properly. And we stayed away from the Chantry as much as possible because they lie like a Kirkwall real estate agent.”

I practiced swimming more and soon had adapted well enough that I didn’t have to watch what I was doing every moment and could simply enjoy myself. Eventually we felt waterlogged enough that we called it quits and returned to shore. Danae commented at that moment she envied my lack of hair, as hers kept straggling into her face and dripping. 

After polishing off the snack trays and having another drink each, we made our way back to the house. The evening sunlight was starting to wane, painting the sky with shades of orange and red and — for a few bizarre minutes — an eerie pink that made everything look like it was glowing. It seemed to me the only place I’d ever seen that phenomenon was in Ostwick, and I had a fleeting feeling of being eleven or twelve, walking up the same hill in that same light.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Danae said.

“It’s the first time I’ve been swimming in ages. I think it wore me out a bit,” I said. I didn’t feel like sharing the brief stab of nostalgia I’d just had.

“I was afraid you were wishing you were back home and hadn’t had to spend the day with your dopey little sister.”

“You are not dopey and I’ve enjoyed this very much,” I said.

She gave me a soft little smile. “So have I. I didn’t know if I would. I thought you might be all arrogant and…well, I wasn’t sure whether you’d be scary and magey or bureaucratic. But you’re fun. I’ll tell you, it’s a huge relief.”

I considered asking her how one acts magey but decided to let it rest. “Does it make me sound like an arrogant twat if I admit it never once crossed my mind that we’d meet? Let alone that you’d _want_ to meet me.”

“No, just sounds like the whole fucked-up past our family’s had,” she said. “Maybe _that’s_ why we all drink like we do.”

I grinned. “It’s as good an excuse as any.”

=#=

My - excuse me, _our_ \- parents returned about an hour after we’d eaten dinner. They still looked terribly pleased with themselves. “How was your afternoon?” Mother asked brightly.

“You are both sneaky and underhanded and we’re very cross with you,” Danae said. “You should have told us.”

“And would both of you have come if we had?” Father asked.

“That’s beside the point,” I said. “What if I’d left before Danae got here? All your planning would have gone right out the window.”

“You don’t think we had a backup plan?” he said with a look of mild surprise.

“I’m sure you did. I’d like to know why you couldn’t just tell us.”

“Because you didn’t know each other,” Mother said as if it was obvious. “If we’d let you know, one or both of you would have come up with some excuse not to show up. Kai, it’s been hard enough to get you to stay overnight and get to know _us_ , let alone a sister you barely remember. And Danae, you’ve talked for years about how embarrassed you were the last time you met Kai, so chances were you’d assume you’d embarrass yourself again and stay away rather than take the chance.”

“Therefore a harmless bit of subterfuge was required,” Father added. “The fact that you’re united in being cross with us suggests we achieved our goal of getting the two of you acquainted.”

“Well you needn’t look so smug about it,” I said, even though they were right about our likely reactions if we’d been told.

“We might not have liked each other,” Danae added.

“Did you hear that, Em? They like each other,” Mother said with exaggerated cheer.

“You two are awful,” Danae pronounced, but she was smiling as she said it.

The rest of the night was surprisingly enjoyable. I kept expecting something terrible to happen, but nothing did. We just talked and played Wicked Grace and while there were subjects everyone avoided mentioning, it didn’t get in the way of anything. Having Danae there took some of the pressure off, as the three of them did have a normal family relationship that bridged the awkward silences there would have been if it was just me there. 

Late that night I retired to my room and activated my sending crystal. Dorian must have been next to his because he answered right away.

“I was wondering if I’d hear from you tonight. Am I to take it this means bloodshed has once again been avoided? Or are you standing stunned in the middle of an abattoir of your own making?”

I laughed. “The former, thankfully. I survived the party and will have amusing anecdotes to inflict on you. I even deflected a marriage proposal.”

“Only one? I expected there would be at least a few hopeful parents thrusting their daughters at you.”

“Perhaps if it was an official function, but these people were all friends of my parents, so there was a greater degree of blind hope necessary. How are things in Minrathous?”

“Hot enough that even I don’t want to set foot outside the house, and I do not mean politically. You’d be in your glory—the only time the temperatures dip into the bearable range is after dark. So naturally the Salvians have invited everyone to an _after dark_ party at their place. I shudder to think what that means, but Mae has promised that we will offer each other mutual protection.”

“I’m missing a Salvian party? I don’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed.”

“Both are appropriate. I’ll tell you every cringeworthy moment when you get back. So what did you do today? Survey the back forty? Whittle a new candelabra? Swap stories at the local water pump?”

“Ha ha. I went swimming.”

“ _Swimming_? Where does one do that? You mean you went to the seashore? Gamboling about in swimwear collecting seashells and dipping your toes in the surf? That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

“My parents have a small lake on the property. It was private and I got to try my arm out.” I wasn’t avoiding telling him about Danae, but I felt like waiting until I got home to talk about her; it was all still too new.

“Ah, that sounds more like you. But in the sunlight and everything?”

“I don’t _melt_ , you know. Besides, I do that a few more times and I might not be quite so glaringly white, at least for a while.”

“But your fair skin is part of your appeal—it offsets my own so well when we’re together.”

“So that’s all I am? An accoutrement to highlight your exquisite good looks?”

“Amatus, you wound me. You’re much more than a fashion accessory. That you can also function as one is merely a happy perk.” He paused a beat and added, “You know, it’s positively unseemly how much I miss you.”

He couldn’t see me, but I smiled. “I miss you terribly too. I figure I’ll only be here another day; I’m going to see Oliver tomorrow. That makes five days, which is long enough that my parents should be getting tired of playing host. Then it’s just a matter of getting back to Hasmal, so I’ll be home in less than a week.”

“I suppose that is an improvement over the bad old pre-eluvian days.”

“Oh, you mean the year you made me stay away and schlep from Hasmal to Tevinter every time I wanted to see you?”

“You’re never going to let that fade into the proverbial mists of time, are you?” he sighed.

“Maybe a few decades from now. And don’t tell me it was character-building.”

“What if I tell you it was terribly wrong-headed and I deserve chastisement?”

“Then you’re just teasing.”

“Or giving you something to look forward to,” he said, dropping his voice to a low purr.

The rest of the conversation isn’t pertinent to this narrative, so I’ll just leave it there. Eventually we wrapped up, said the usual endearments to each other and I promised to let him know when I was leaving. It was a decent ending to a surprisingly decent day.


	8. Day 5-6 - Old Friends and Farewells

The afternoon was warm and bright, though a raft of clouds was rolling in from the coast threatening rain or possibly even a thunderstorm. Since I’d gotten to choose my horse this time, I was riding Lightning, the bay gelding my parents had let me borrow for the two years I’d lived in Ostwick. It was probably wishful thinking, but I was sure he remembered me even after all those years. At least, when I approached him he whickered just like he used to and nuzzled my hand when I reached out to say hello.

The outskirts of Ostwick appeared a little sooner than they had on my brief visit a year and a half before (the famous walls were now well within the city limits; the city itself had just spread past them over time). I wondered idly how long it would be before they were encroaching on the gates of my parents’ estate. I could see changes in the city as I rode through it. In addition to the slow creep of the outskirts, there were entire streets where the boxy wooden houses I remembered had been torn down in favour of brick-and-stucco, which appeared to be all the rage as the area began to gentrify. There were a few new shops, a park I'd never seen before, and an ugly apartment building where another park had been.

The streets had been upgraded again with better paving materials, and I saw more community water pumps and street lamps had been installed. I knew those were pet projects of my father’s and felt rather proud of him. He takes his position as Bann of Ostwick seriously, and both he and Mother actually care about the welfare of the place and people. Not every noble family feels that way.

Despite the rest of the city’s march forward, the Traveler’s Rest looked virtually the same as it had when I’d picked it as my base of operations because I hadn’t the slightest idea how to go about setting myself up after leaving the Circle. The inn may have gotten a new paint job, but they’d chosen the same colour. When I walked in, even the clientele looked the same, right down to the never-ending game of Wicked Grace at the big round table near the back of the common room.

I was a bit early, so I got myself a beer and without thinking, went directly to the table where I’d always sat when I lived in town. It dawned on me what I’d done once I was sitting; I was a little nonplused at how deeply ingrained some habits become. I’d only had a few swallows when a familiar figure approached with his own drink in hand.

Oliver Caudill, First Enchanter of the Ostwick Circle, was a big man with close-cropped brown hair shot through with grey and a short, well-kept beard that now had about as much grey as his hair. His eyes were deep brown and intelligent. He’d put on a few pounds since I saw him last, but was still looking quite fit. When not wearing his mage robes, he favoured sensibly-cut brown trousers and boots paired with shirts in varying shades of blue, and today’s outfit was no exception.

We greeted each other as he sat across from me and looked me up and down. “You’re looking good, Kai. Your new climes seem to agree with you.”

“I haven’t been there long enough to know either way,” I said. “I was only there full-time for a month before Dorian talked me into this visit, so I have yet to experience a full Minrathous summer. And you’re looking good yourself.”

“Thank you, even though I know I’ve added enough to my girth that you’re probably just being polite. I was worried for a few moments that you might have decided you wanted hair and I wouldn’t recognize you when I got here. Nice to see some things don’t change.”

“I occasionally consider it, but about the time my hair grows to the point of developing topography I realize I’d have to _do_ something to keep it looking normal and that’s enough to make me shave it again. Besides, it makes my head hot.”

His brows drew down as he thought about that. “Makes your head hot? Are you serious?”

“Do you have any idea how disgusting it feels to have sweat lodged in your hair when you’re not used to it?”

“I’ve never considered that,” he said with a short laugh. “Wonderful, now I’ll be able to think of nothing else the next time it gets hot here. How’s the visit been?”

“Enlightening and surprisingly enjoyable. My parents seem to have decided my being a mage is, if not desirable, at least acceptable.”

“Imagine that.” He drank some of his beer and smiled. “You know, I’ve been thinking — I’d like to reach out to at least the families of our mages if not the community in general and offer to teach them a bit about what we are and can do without all the hyperbole and histrionics. The world may have changed over the last few years, but old ideas and prejudices don’t go away as quickly. I’d prefer to head off the backlash that tends to happen when people decide things are changing _too_ quickly for their comfort.”

“I like that idea. Maybe if we made a little more effort to educate people they wouldn’t swallow the Chantry line whole. Speaking of teaching, how’s Enna?”

Enna was an untrained mage around twenty years old I’d sent to Oliver after catching her doing things in Hasmal that were both silly and dangerous. At the time I’d felt like a monster for sending her to a Circle and she’d made it abundantly clear she shared that opinion.

“She’s doing well. She hit it off with Petra, thank the Maker. Now that she’s losing the attitude—mostly—she’s proven to be a good student. Not as powerful as you, but she’s no slouch either. She and Petra do have to have regular refresher discussions about ethics and the importance of having them.”

“Hopefully that means she no longer wants me to die screaming.”

“I haven’t asked, but let’s assume not. Mind you, the young lady does hold onto grudges like a dwarven merchant holds onto her coin pouch."

He told me in some detail about what it had been like, carving out a place for the Ostwick Circle as an independent entity no longer tied to Chantry and Templars. We’d been writing back and forth regularly, so I knew what he was planning, but he was able to go more in-depth in person. I’d told him a great deal about how the Circle system worked in Tevinter, passing on what Dorian described to me. Though he’d never admit it to anyone in the south, Oliver was basing his Circle on that model, transforming it into something more akin to a live-in University for mages. I applauded his efforts, as I’ve always agreed with the need for formal training.

He’d been in close contact with the College of Enchanters for some time now, sharing information and strategies with them. I was quietly supporting their efforts and had been communicating with Oliver regularly concerning the establishment of more Tevinter-style Circles (without the sneeringly superior attitude towards non-mages I’ve seen so often there) in the south. It wasn’t something I advertised, but I oppose Grand Enchanter Vivienne’s desire to see the Chantry model reinstated with every fibre of my being, and I wasn’t about to abandon that cause just because I left the south.

We finished the serious discussion around the same time we finished our second drinks. Oliver sat back in his chair and smiled impishly. "Do you want to stay here for the sheer nostalgia of reliving the giddy whirlwind that was your life in Ostwick, or would you like to blow this ale stand and sample what passes for life on the wild side?”

I grinned. “You need to ask?”

We went to a restaurant we were fond of where we had an excellent meal, then to another pub where the musicians were uncommonly good (especially for Ostwick), and — since I refused to set foot in the Circle even to see my dearest old friend — ended the night taking drinks back to the suite he had taken for the night at one of the better inns, where we talked until false dawn lit the sky.

I told him things I would never have told my parents about what had happened to me over the last year, from the small, private eluvian line between Hasmal and Minrathous that Dorian and I had set up to the creature we'd encountered in Minrathous to the circumstances surrounding my finally taking the chance on using those eluvians. He understood the weirdnesses of being a powerful mage in a way they never could.  

We slept until one of the inn staff banged on the door wanting to know if Oliver was going to let the room for another night (we had separate beds, in case anyone was getting any inappropriate thoughts), then went downstairs for coffee and a late breakfast.

“You know, you need to come see me in Tevinter,” I told him. “We’ll be relocating to Qarinus next summer. Dorian’s family’s place is there.”

“Tevinter in summer? I overheat far too easily for that. Not to mention there could be some question concerning the propriety of a First Enchanter from the Marches visiting Tevinter, don’t you think?”

I snorted. “Exactly who do you imagine is in a position to give you any grief about it? The Circles haven’t been beholden to the Chantry for years now, and even if you were worried about it, the Divine is a personal friend. Besides, I want you and Dorian to meet. I think you’d like each other and I want to see if I’m right.”

He smiled. “Believe me, I want to meet the man who’s won your devotion so utterly. Well, that and I have a few thousand questions about how they do magic in Tevinter and from what you say, he’ll know the answers to many of them.”

“He will. But I sense a ‘but’ still lurking in the background.”

“Old habits, mostly,” he admitted. “It’s still difficult to wrap my mind around the idea that I’m free to come and go from the Circle as I please even though I’ve done so since we took that holiday to Markham. Also difficult to conceive of going to Tevinter for a holiday. You mean Divine Victoria still talks to you after you moved up there?”

I grinned. “Well, she knew I didn’t give a nug’s arse what Divine Victoria and the Chantry thought. I don’t honestly know what _Cassandra_ thought about it, but Dorian’s a friend of hers too and she understands _why_ , so she’s still a friend. I do doubt I’ll be invited to any future Chantry functions, though.”

He chuckled. “All right, I’ll at least look into it. I admit I’m curious. Write me once you get home and we’ll start working something out. But right now I do have some duties to attend to, and I’m sure your family is wondering where you are. That’s my roundabout way of saying I’ve got to go.”

“I know. It’s been wonderful seeing you, Oliver.”

“I wouldn’t have missed this visit for the world. Take care of yourself, Kai. You do keep in mind that Tevinter and its magisters are not benign creatures, I hope.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Dorian reminds me of that on a regular basis. How you both got the idea I’m that trusting of people is beyond me.”

“Maybe it’s because you come across as so damned _decent_. I’d love to know how you manage that.”

“Visit me in Tevinter and maybe I’ll tell you.”

We said our final goodbyes and I fetched Lightning from the stables. In less than an hour I was back at my parents’ place. Because I’d been gone overnight and Danae was visiting, I got roped into spending another night there. To tell the truth, I didn’t mind terribly, but I was starting to want to get back too. As I told Oliver, I’d only been living in Minrathous for a month, so I hadn’t even had time to completely feel like I lived there yet. I also missed Dorian, of course.

It doesn’t make for fascinating reading, but nothing went wrong that entire night. We continued to use card games as a bit of a buffer and I don’t know how much my family did, but I continued to refrain from mentioning large swaths of my life that might make things uncomfortable between us, but for all that I had a good time and they seemed to as well. In a way it seemed almost surreal; I had long ago accepted that I would never experience again what being part of a normal family was like. There was a part of me that kept waiting for something terrible to happen, and was surprised when nothing did. I wondered if that part would ever give up and go away entirely.

The next day I finally was able to contact Dorian on the sending crystal and let him know I was leaving for Hasmal. Because of our eluvian shortcut, the journey from Ostwick was the part that took all the time. Once I reached my house in Hasmal, the trek to Dorian’s — excuse me, _our_ — house in Minrathous would only take about ten hours on horseback.

The farewells with my family were warmer and more comfortable than I could ever recall them being. 

“I’m glad we finally got to meet,” Danae said almost shyly.

“So am I. Let’s not wait another twenty-five years to do it again,” I said with a smile.

“You better be careful — I might take that as an invitation to visit for a month or two.”

I shrugged. “We’ve got the room.”

She looked at me questioningly. “So…what are we supposed to do? Shake hands? Hug?”

“I don’t know the protocol, so,” I went ahead and gave her a hug, which she returned. It was brief and a little awkward, but nice.

Mother was next. She didn’t wait, but gave _me_ a hug. For the first time since I was thirteen, I didn’t stiffen up when she did that. “Have a good trip back and say hello to Dorian for us,” she said. “I’m glad you came.”

“I am too. You should come visit us next. I’m always the one who has to do the traveling.”

She cast a sideways glance at Father. “All we have to do is get _him_ to agree. I’ll work at it.”

“Good.” I took her hands. “Thank you. This meant a lot to me.”

She squeezed my hands back. “It was badly overdue, but it meant a lot to us too. Be careful, son.”

“I will.” 

I turned to Father, who hesitated then also pulled me into a hug (one of those awkward ones that ended with a few manly pats on the back). He took a few steps back and gave me a quick smile. “Kai. Thanks for deciding to spend a little time here.”

“It was about time I did. I enjoyed it. I mean that.”

“We did too.” He paused, looked up at the sky and back at me. “You’d better get on the road while you have some sun. There’ve been reports of brigands by the border, but I don’t imagine that will pose a problem for you.”

I nodded. “Not likely. I’ll use due caution, though. Thank you. For everything.”

“You’re welcome. We’ll do this again.”

“Next time it should be in Tevinter.”

He frowned. “How about we say Hasmal? You could bring your…Dorian with you, surely.”

“We’ll figure it out.” I let him off the hook, not wanting to end things on a bad note. “Good bye, Father.”

“Good bye, Kai.”

I stepped into the waiting coach, giving them all a last wave. It would take time to process everything that had happened, but a lot of things that had been broken for a very long time had finally started to get fixed. The feeling of relief I had was surprising in its strength because I hadn’t been aware I was that bothered about it.

It had been a good visit, but I was glad to be going home. To Tevinter, and a Magisterium and a load of Altus mages who weren’t necessarily pleased with Dorian’s decision to publicly acknowledge our relationship. My first month there had gone well, but it was still summer and many of the more powerful members of the Magisterium were away. As we continued to buck tradition, I just hoped we’d survive the experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [Eureka234](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Eureka234/pseuds/Eureka234) for the excellent beta!
> 
> Thank you for reading! As always, feedback is welcomed. 
> 
> Kai and Dorian's story will continue...

**Author's Note:**

> Curious what Kai looks like? Pictures are viewable [here](https://imgur.com/a/gZFkd)


End file.
